Alexandria looked both backward and forward Monday night at the Visit Alexandria annual meeting at The Birchmere — with a special presentation and plaque for The Birchmere Founder Gary Oelze for “53 remarkable years of music” and a look ahead at the arrival of Amazon, Virginia Tech and a number of new developments coming.
In the past year, Alexandria has worked with partners to help bring Amazon to the newly created National Landing, along with the new Virginia Tech Innovation Campus. Alexandria also opened Waterfront Park, which turned a barbed wire-enclosed parking lot into Alexandria’s most popular park. In the past year, Aslin Beer Co., Lost Boy Cider and Kaiser Permanente moved into Alexandria.
Alexandria also endured a transportation nightmare and came through stronger: Despite the shutdown of Metro south of Reagan National Airport for more than 90 days this summer, Alexandria saw record tourism revenue — $859 million from residents coming from more than 50 miles away.
“It really is a whole family, a whole community, of businesses and people working together and being creative and helping each other out. That’s really what makes tourism in Alexandria successful,” said City Manager Mark Jinks.
Virginia’s tourism has boomed in the past 50 years, since the “Virginia is for Lovers” brand launched. In 1969, tourism in Virginia was a $1.3 billion industry. Now, it’s more than $26 billion. Every dollar in Virginia tourism returns $7 in tax revenue, according to Rita McClenny, president and CEO of the Virginia Tourism Corporation.
Alexandria’s tourism industry has tripled in the past 50 years. In 1969, $42 million of Alexandria’s economy was attributed to tourism (that’s $287 million today adjusted for inflation). Alexandria’s tourism revenue of $859 is triple that amount. Travel also supported 6,583 jobs in Alexandria, which represents 7% of the local workforce.
Despite the Metro shutdown, hotel occupancy held steady at 72.5%, exceeding 70% in each of the past five years. Visit Alexandria worked hard to promote tourism alongside the City’s Transportation & Environmental Services to ensure residents and tourists alike knew that Alexandria remained accessible. Combined with the “50 Ways to Love Your Summer” campaign and a variety of other initiatives, tourism did not take nearly the hit to tourism that was originally projected from the Metro shutdown.
In the coming year, Visit Alexandria will be focusing more on neighborhood promotion, including the West End, Carlyle/Eisenhower East and Del Ray. (See an example at www.visitalexandriava.com/plan/neighborhoods/west-end/.)
Visit Alexandria will also create a growth and sustainability plan for the King Street Corridor, and focus on new consumer research to guide advertising and outreach. A new destination ad campaign is shooting this week.
Initial research shows Alexandria’s “product strengths” are the waterfront, walkability and proximity to the District. Opportunities include doing more to share national accolades, increasing tourists’ length of stay and increasing awareness.
In addition, in January, Visit Alexandria’s sales team will introduce The Leadership Collection™ at Alexandria, pairing three nationally-recognized leadership and team building institutes—the George Washington Leadership Institute at Mount Vernon, McChrystal Group, which is led by retired 4-star General Stanley McChrystal, and Building Momentum—with concierge-level service incorporating accommodations, transportation and more.
