October 31 at Lincoln South Rotary - Lincoln Tourism

Derek provided a detailed review of tourism in Lincoln and Lancaster County. We heard about general activities, specific event and the economic impact of tourism. As he stated, the job of the tourism professionals is to bring people in to Lincoln and Lancaster County.

 

There were a lot of statistics shared with us - to show the impact of tourism in Lincoln and Lancaster County. Derek explained that the term "visitor" refers to anyone 50 miles or more outside of Lancaster County. The data comes from a few sources - including credit card details as well as tracking devices such as smart phones and smart watches.

 

The stats that he shared are very current - as of a few days ago.

16% of the people are visitors

14% of the spending is from our visitors

18% of restaurant spending is from visitors

$45 is the average daily spending at restaurant per visitor

17% of retail spending is from visitors

$87 is the average spending at retail establishments for visitors

57% of arts,  entertainment and attractions is from visitors

$38 is the average spent by visitors in this category

 

Of the visitors (again - those 50+ miles outside of Lancaster County):

78% were out of state visitors

27% of those visitors purchased from locally owned (non-franchise) businesses

 

Tracking of visitors - where they traveled from - was interesting. The percentage of visitors from these areas:

12% - Hastings to Kearney

8% - Omaha

5% - Denver

4% - Des Moines to Ames Iowa

4% - Chicago

4% - Kansas City

3% - Sioux City

3% - New York

3% - Minneapolis / St. Paul

2% - Sioux Falls to Mitchell South Dakota

 

We also looked at statistic about Visitors by Household Income - 25% were from households of $101 to $124 thousand.

 

And, based on aga - 20% were between ages 45-54. Derek did comment that the age is impacted by smaller families - the number of children per family is decreasing yearly.

 

All of these demographics help with the marketing efforts - they know the audience.

 

Derek continued to share developments that impact the tourism efforts. For example, there are three new hotels in downtown Lincoln in 2025. There will be 5769 more hotel rooms - an increase of 8% over last year.

 

He shared the impact of the Sandhills Global Youth Complex. Earlier this Rotary Year we heard from Joe Fagler the manager of the complex. Derek shared similar facts about the complex. They have only been open since the Spring of 2025 and have already held over 2300 games. Because of the field design, they rarely have to cancel games due to rainy weather - they have held 99.1% of the schedule games so far. They have averaged 5800 visitors per week since they opened.

 

Some of the recent successful events:

 

National Science Olympiad - at UNL - brought in elite middle & high school students; many students came in early to tour the UNL campus and admissions at UNL have increased due to this.

 

American Volleyball Coaches Association hosted 8 teams in August. There were 45,000 tickets told to the events - 40% of those were outside visitors. The events were nationally televised. It was great promotion for Lincoln as the scoreboard and screens were constantly promoting Lincoln.

 

Derek talked about specific activities to "Tell Lincoln's Story". 

 

One interesting initiative is the creation of Neighborhood Guides. This will be a way to talk about our unique neighborhoods - College View, University Place, Havelock, etc. The idea is to identify and highlight neighborhood unique restaurants and retail establishments. You can view the current information on the Visit Lincoln website - click here.

 

 

BIO