City of Morgan Hill Bikeways, Trails, Parks and Recreation Master Plan

Section 2: Introduction and Executive Summary | May 2017 Sports Market Business Strategy – Morgan Hill, CA PAGE 14

from a more unified effort to generate sports tourism and fully leverage its existing assets.

As an initial step, Johnson Consulting recommends the implementation of a DMO and it should include a specific focus on attracting and creating various sports events for existing and future facilities in Morgan Hill. Without a designated office coordinating tourism and/or sports tourism efforts it is difficult to generate unity within in the marketplace. For example, some of the hotels in Morgan Hill do not seem interested in working with events holders to provide room blocks or hotel rebates for sports tournaments. A sports commission, which could be established under the umbrella of a DMO, could work with all parties to put on the event, attract participants, and get hotels and restaurants on board so that the full economic benefits of an event can be captured in Morgan Hill. Nationally, such DMO’s are also able to secure regional and state tourism grants that will help with marketing efforts to attract events to the marketplace. Additionally, a regional director of special events/ festivals should be appointed who would centralize event scheduling and prepare a monthly event calendar. This effort would help minimize any doubling up of events on particular days and create a common event marketing strategy, allowing for greater attendance at each event. DMO’s are typically setup as not-for profit organizations funded through a variety of sources. Often the funding will come from sales tax, hotel room night tax, or food and beverage tax. Revenues generated by a funding source should be dedicated to tourism marketing efforts, incentives to attract events and tourism product development projects. The organizational structure of a DMO should consist of an advisory board and a smaller executive board. Partnerships and collaborations with the State, other regional tourism organizations will all be helpful in moving the destination and the DMO forward. Primary partnerships could be established with the Chamber of Commerce (and other business associations), Downtown Organizations, Wineries and economic development groups. The new DMO should have a concentrated focus on the leisure market, SMERFE (Societal, Military, Educational, Religious Fraternal and Ethnic) market, social event market, convention/meeting market and sporting event market to bring a multi-purpose inventory of events in Morgan Hill (This will help protect against becoming too highly leveraged in one particular event market). The future development of tourism products in Morgan Hill should be a major priority for the new DMO. Lastly, the DMO and associated stakeholders should prepare a destination master plan, which determines activity centers, development areas, potential product development, timelines, cost projections, etc. STEP TWO – Update Existing Facilities Similar to Step One, the City should continue down the same path of capitalizing and fully leveraging existing assets within the City. The Outdoor Sports Center and Aquatics Center generate the most visitors for sporting events in the City.

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