Plymouth is home to a popular amphitheater, a lively community and ice center, an extensive network of parks and trails, plenty of restaurants, and a calendar packed with city-sponsored events.
But many residents of the growing west metro suburbs have no idea, so the city is setting up its own tourism marketing arm to get the word out.
“Tournament planners say over and over again that everyone enjoys Plymouth, but no one knows what’s going on or what we have to offer,” he said during the winter. said Katie Langland, who was hired as the city’s new destination marketing coordinator. “We want to tell our story about what’s in Plymouth and what’s happening.”
The idea is not new, as many large urban neighborhoods, including St. Louis Park, Maple Grove, Anoka, Roseville, Brooklyn Park, Richfield, Shakopee and Cottage Grove, already hire nonprofits or outside groups to promote their cities, but in Plymouth, tourism will be run by the city, making it one of the first major metropolitan areas to do so.
Mayor Ann Burt said the East metro area of Woodbury is taking a similar approach with its “Destination: Woodbury” designation, which the city has long considered.
“We thought now was the time to introduce it,” said the mayor of Minnesota’s eighth-largest city.
The city already had many of the resources needed to start a tourism operation, including IT, finance, parks and recreation, and marketing, so the decision to do this in-house made sense.
“We thought it would be crazy to hand it over to a nonprofit and make them pay for it,” Burt said. “We can attract people to what is our own: sports stadiums, indoor Central Park, the nearby St. Croix River Valley, and an ever-growing restaurant menu.”
This week, Woodbury hired its first destination marketing organization manager, a position the city is paying for through a 3 percent hotel room tax, which Burt said will generate about $497,000 for the city from April 2023 to February 2024.
Langland, who previously worked for Discover St. Louis Park and the Minneapolis Northwest Convention and Visitors Bureau, is the sole employee in Plymouth of the yet-to-be-named tourism division that will operate as part of the Parks and Recreation Department.
Plymouth City Council on Tuesday sought one of seven spots on an advisory committee that would work with Langland to develop policy and generate ideas for marketing the metropolitan area’s seventh-largest city. Interviewed the candidate. The board, likely to be officially sworn in this summer, would function similarly to a planning commission and be governed by the City Council.
In the weeks since the board took office, its first tasks have been to choose a name, launch a website, and prepare for the city to begin rebuilding one of its main streets, Plymouth Boulevard, this summer. , developing plans to support local businesses and attractions.
The street runs directly in front of the city’s major attractions, the Hilde Performance Center, the Plymouth Ice Center and the neighborhood community center.
Plymouth has been preparing to run its own destination marketing organization (DMO) since it began collecting a 3% hotel room tax in 2020. The city is home to many medical technology companies, but the number of business travelers staying at Plymouth’s nine hotels has fallen during the pandemic. The idea was conceived to find a way to promote businesses, hotels, restaurants and the many sporting events the city hosts.
In short, the message is: “Stay here,” Langland said.
Plymouth’s DMO’s annual budget will be about $200,000, Langland said.
Greg Anzelk, executive director of Experience Maple Grove, a nonprofit group formed in 2022, said a tourism organization like the one Plymouth is trying to establish can have a positive economic impact on the city and nearby areas.
“If we were trying to attract a sporting event, the fields in Maple Grove might be full and unavailable,” Anzerk said. “We could reach out to Plymouth’s DMO and co-host the event. We’re happy to have DMO in Plymouth.”
Langland said the DMO will allow the city to highlight some of its popular tourist attractions, along with lesser-known locations such as the Brewpub Indoor Dog Park and Mulligan’s Indoor Golf.
“Plymouth has a lot to offer,” Langland said. “We’re very excited about it.”
