Largely thanks to the Florida Strawberry Festival, Plant City is a nationally-known tourist destination.
But one local group is working to show that Plant City has more to offer than just strawberries.
Visit Plant City, formerly the Tourism Task Force, wants to brand Plant City. The group, which has been developing its identity and plan for over a year, is ready to go full steam ahead in 2017.
MAKING MOVES
Visit Plant City got its start as the Tourism Task Force, an extension of the Plant City Main Street program that formed to help rejuvenate the Historic Downtown district.
With members from the City of Plant City, Greater Plant City Chamber of Commerce and the Plant City Economic Development Corp., among other groups, the task force held its first meeting in December 2015. Its goal was to find a way to bring tourists into town and stimulate the local economy.
Led by Yvonne Fry, the 2017 chairperson for the Greater Plant City Chamber of Commerce, the group spent 2016 identifying Plant City’s current strengths and potential future assets, and ideas came together over time. By the end of 2016, Fry and the other members felt confident that their work could pay off.
The group changed its name to Visit Plant City, falling more in line with tourism organizations such as Visit Florida and Visit Tampa Bay — two groups that have been eager to lend a helping hand.
“We want to grow those relationships and be strong partners,” Fry said.
Visit Plant City’s goals are more clear now than they were a year ago, partly because the group has identified a clearer target demographic than it had in 2016.
THERE AND BACK AGAIN
According to Fry, Visit Plant City is going to start by marketing to what she calls “current visitors.”
These visitors are the people who live outside of Plant City, but travel here more often than most. Whether they regularly attend the Florida Strawberry Festival, watch and play sports in organized tournaments or visit for a day of antiquing around town, they’re already familiar with Plant City to some degree. These are the people that Visit Plant City wants to reach first because, even though they have reasons to keep coming back, there may be incentives for them to stay longer and spend more money in town.
“We said, ‘There’s so many people coming here already, that’s where we need to focus our attention,” Fry said.
To keep people informed of what’s going on around town, Visit Plant City hopes to create tourism packages. Packages would include information about local hot spots and attractions, and would possibly include discounts and other promotions from local businesses. Fry and the group want to build long-term relationships between such tourists and Plant City.
Plant City’s Tourist Information Center, which is moving into the Chamber of Commerce in April 2017, is in the process of being designated a Visit Florida information center. Visit Tampa Bay, a branch of Visit Florida, has had members at all of Visit Plant City’s committee meetings and even conducted surveys at Pig Jam and Christmas Lane.
“We want to be able to measure things and see what kind of impact we’re having,” Fry said.
In 2017, Visit Plant City also hopes to implement a strong digital presence. The group already has a Facebook page, but Fry said that a website will be created and that a smartphone application, while not a guarantee, is something the group would like to pursue if possible.
“We’re working through and making sure that we don’t do anything that’s not sustainable,” Fry said.
Ideally, the group would like to release an app that uses a phone’s location services to give consumers information pushes corresponding to their location. For example, someone near East Reynolds Street may be notified about the Robert W. Willaford Railroad Museum, while someone near Thonotosassa Road may get information about Parkesdale Farm Market.
Besides the Florida Strawberry Festival, Plant City’s local sports scene is one of the city’s biggest tourism draws and something Visit Plant City already has its eye on. The city’s parks were used for tournament play and other events in 40 of the 52 weeks of 2016, and several of the events were big draws.
“The two largest events we host – UYFL National Championships and USFTL National Championships bring in 120 and 400-plus teams, respectively” Plant City Recreation and Parks Director Jack Holland said. “Both draw 15,000-plus participants and spectators at each event. The UYFL tournament is the largest youth amateur event in Hillsborough County, per the Tampa Bay Sports Commission.”
While the nationally-promoted events have visitors pumping more money into local hotels, restaurants and other businesses, even the smaller events have the potential to draw tourism.
“Our independent sports programs have visiting teams playing against them who should be made aware of what Plant City offers,” Holland said. “Even at the lowest level, our recreation sports programs are roughly 50% county residents and 50% city residents, so their spectators coming into town for lunch or shopping make an impact, as well.”
Once Visit Plant City can successfully market to more regular visitors, it will focus more on bringing in tourists with little to no knowledge of Plant City. The group is confident that its 2017 efforts can help Plant City grow and flourish.
“We’ve got so many resources to pull from in our community,” Fry said.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.