While not one of the more catchy titles for our Monday Huddle Ups, this week’s edition is just that. A data dive into the destination types that our team works with the most – small and mid-sized markets. If you look at the make-up of the Sports Events and Tourism Association (SportsETA), you will find that a majority of their members would classify as tier two or tier three destinations. Yes there are large market members from places like Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Boston, and Orlando. However, the population that makes up the majority of the association are places like Appleton, Monroe, College Station, Norman, North Platte, Fresno, and Medford.
Over the years, our team at HUG has evolved into a consultancy that is much more about data and benchmarking than just offering up our opinions on things. We use data, surveying, benchmarking, and best practices to guide us to where a project should lead. This is particularly the case when we are working on facility projects. We lean on the Sports Tourism Index™, event owner surveys, rights holder RFP requirements, and the competitive set of a particular destination to help guide the conversation on what venue investments would likely deliver the best ROI.
As we try to summarize some of this data, we produce infographics and charts to tell the story of the numbers. Numbers by themselves are often intangible to the reader, so we try to story tell visually around what the data actually says. Which leads us to this week’s Huddle Up…..
Recently our team raised the question, “If we can articulate what an A-plus venue looks like versus a C-grade facility, can we apply that same analysis and graphic treatment to the destinations themselves?” The team’s answer was, “Of course we can, what do we want to measure?”
We decided to focus on a few basic metrics: staff and volunteer structures (aka human capital), funding, and events. The following chart touches on each of these areas. The analysis included 200 destinations (n=200), all with a population of less than 500,000 people.
The first column is the element we are measuring. The second column under “Averages” that is titled “Top 10” shows the average of the top 10 scoring destinations in this set according to the Sports Tourism Index™. Not the top 10 percent, the top 10 individual destinations from the select set of 200. These are the A-plus market leaders in sports tourism for those destinations under 500,000 in population. The third column under “Averages” that is titled “Overall” shows the average response for the middle of the road destinations in this same set of 200.
The top 10 are the honor students in the class, while those that land in the overall column are the C-level students just scraping by. The “Difference” column shows the gap between a market leader and an average scoring destination. The A students versus the C students if you will. In that last column, the darker the green shading, the bigger the gap between best-in-class and the middle of the pack. The last row at the bottom shows the average Sports Tourism Index™ score for each group. Check out the chart and then we can dive into a brief analysis….
Looking at the data, it’s easy to draw out a few themes. Here are three takeaways from the chart for your consideration:
Human Capital – The higher performing sports tourism destinations have more sports dedicated staff and also a larger volunteer support system (in the form of boards and advisory boards).
Funding – The Top 10 group has more funding across the board. Not surprising.
Events – Surprisingly, the Top 10 group had only a marginally higher success rate than the Overall group when bidding to host events (59% to 52%). However, the fact that the top tier destinations submit nearly four times the number of bids each year than their average counterparts naturally creates a big gap when considering the number of events actually hosted in a given year (roughly 12 more events per year for the market leading destinations).
If you are a sports tourism destination, take a look at your organization. How would you stack up against these two groups? Where would you plot yourself on a virtual map with your competition? Given this data, are there areas you can see now that are obvious gaps between where you are today and where you want to be?
In the coming months, we will expand upon this data-driven dialog, with more Monday Huddle Ups dedicated to this type of analysis. This week’s entry was meant to be a primer for our future conversations together.
Follow the data. Use it to make educated, intentional, smart decisions. Aspire to be an A student.
More data dives to come.
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