Lynchburg's Office of Economic Development & Tourism 2022

About the City

GOAL ONE SUPPORT AND GROW LYH BUSINESSES AND DESTINATION ASSETS

• Building effective relationships and resources to grow existing businesses and destination assets

• Delivering the support small businesses need to achieve long-term sustainability and resilience

• Engaging anchor institutions to achieve shared goals

GOAL TWO

DRIVE LONG-TERM ECONOMIC GROWTH AND RESILIENCE

• Examining sites and infrastructure, including redevelopment opportunities, needed to drive business location decisions

• Providing tools to leverage investment by new and existing companies

• Driving revenue through destination development, meetings and sports tourism

GOAL THREE

POSITION LYH AS THE BEST SMALL CITY IN AMERICA

• Implementing a city-wide brand and marketing campaign

• Promoting LYH as an attractive destination by curating experiences for residents and visitors

• Investing in quality of place, enhancing the image of LYH as the best place to live and work

WHO WE SERVE: RESIDENTS BUSINESSES TALENT VISITORS

GROWING FASTER THAN THE REGION

LYH’s population grew by 3.6% from 2015-2020 and is projected to grow by 5% over the next 5 years. This is faster than the region but slower than the Commonwealth.

LYH MAKES THINGS

More than 6,000 work in LYH’s manufacturing sector – 22% more than the national average. Manufacturing is changing, the sector has lost 460 jobs since 2016. Average wages in this sector are $78,375.

RECORD JOB OPENINGS

Job openings are at a record high in LYH – there are

5,222

total active job openings, but the city’s labor participation rate is just 52.3%. Nursing is the #1 in-demand skill.

MEDS AND EDS MATTER

LYH's professional and knowledge economy is driven by meds and eds. Educational services is

7 TIMES

the U.S. average, and healthcare is 3 times.

SMALL BUSINESS IMPACT

95% of LYH businesses employ less than 50 employees; just 21 LYH businesses have more than 250 employees.

POVERTY REDUCTION

The poverty rate in LYH has dropped

in the past five years from 22.7% to 17.1%.

Re Si D e N t S

Our 81,000 residents are smart, young and diverse. Like many residents of solid cities with modest attitudes, we like where we live but tend to take their surroundings for granted. We work to instill pride of place, making our residents aware of the many attributes and opportunities of our City, helping them feel they belong and have a voice.

LYH Loves You showcases Lynchburg’s brightest, kindest and most creative and hard-working communities through ambassadors – featuring the business owners and citizens who are doing this work every dayrevealing the character of the city, the inclusive nature of our people and our outsized ambitions.

LYH LOVES YOU BRAND AWARENESS

We continued deployment of the LYH Loves You campaign across the City, including pole banners, advertising and promotional partnerships with our anchor institutions.

VIRGINIA

MILER

INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

AGE

Office of Economic Development & Tourism

the James River Arts & Cultural District program, an effort to

arts and cultural activity. In 2022, we worked with the nonprofit arts organizations in the District to produce a brochure, video and social media campaign to promote the District.

SPECIAL EVENTS

The Economic Development Authority of the City of Lynchburg (EDA) has again been selected to receive $500,000 in assessment grants from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to continue to assist businesses and property owners to identify, assess and begin redevelopment of brownfields in the City. Funding dedicated to the assessment of sites potentially impacted by hazardous substances and petroleum will be used to conduct Phase I and Phase II environmental site assessments, cleanup and redevelopment planning and community engagement activities. The EDA previously received a federal Brownfields grant in 2015 and again in 2018, totaling over $1 million in support.

“With access to these funds, our Office assists property owners in redevelopment, and the City experiences economic growth through reinvestment, greater employment opportunities, reduced environmental threats and an enhanced quality of life.”

- Marjette Upshur, Director

SPENDING IN LOCAL BUSINESSES RISES ABOVE PRE-PANDEMIC LEVELS

$20,725,246

$15,000,000

$10,000,000

$5,000,000

S15,976,194

$1,122,817

To

$150,000

To

Leveraging

Supporting

$2,861,677

$18,064,626

Masterplanning and site development efforts for sites in Ivy Creek Innovation Park and the future Airport Commerce Park advanced in 2022. These efforts will help to open more than 300 acres of property for industrial and commercial development.

More than

WOMEN IN MACHINING IN PARTNERSHIP WITH VECTOR SPACE AND CENTRAL VIRGINIA CAREER WORKS

TA le N t

We work with our businesses and anchor institutions to target both the students at our colleges and universities as well as ‘boomerangs’—those who were born or spent some time here, left for a time, and might be considering a return. We position the City as livable, affordable and beautiful with a strong message of inclusion and community. Our office has robust partnerships with organizations that help us to advance this mission.

CLOUDFIT INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

COMMENCEMENT NUMBERS

Our colleges and universities confer more than 24,000 two-year, fouryear, and post-graduate degrees annually. In 2022, commencement exercises at Liberty University, the University of Lynchburg and Randolph College welcomed nearly 60,000 visitors with a total local spending impact of $14.7 million.

PARTNERSHIPS WITH OUR COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES

JOBS PORTAL

With thousands of open jobs, Lynchburg employers and job seekers alike are looking for ways to connect. The LYH Jobs Portal is a digital tool that gathers job postings from across the internet into a localized, searchable database - without having to log-in or create an account. Designed to complement and bolster job assistance programs, we refer those needing additional assistance in job searching and supportive services to community partners.

LYHLOVESYOU.COM/JOBS

STEM ACADEMY AT JUBILEE CENTER

LYNCHBURG CITY SCHOOLS BEACON OF HOPE INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

DIVIDED TALENT POOL

4 iN 10 LYH

residents have a BA or higher, better than the region and the U.S. However, 10% of residents have no high school diploma (higher than the national average).

A ROBUST COLLEGE POOL

In 2020, there were 23,161

graduates from LYH colleges and universities. This pipeline has grown by 10% over the last 5 years. The key going forward: retention

ELECTRONIC

Vi S itO r S

Tourism drives spending in food and beverage, lodging, transportation, retail and recreation. In the City of Lynchburg, tourism jobs comprised 3,245 of our local employment and $18.9 million in state and local tax revenues, saving each LYH household about $688 in annual state and local tax collections. In 2021 LYH occupancy and average daily rates rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.

LYH visitors are leisure weekenders, business travelers and conference-goers, friends and family of university students or sports fans. With marketing and sales outreach efforts, we build awareness of LYH as a warm and welcoming place, rich in connection and unexpected discovery and provide experiences that put visitors into the heart of our City’s character.

The Lynchburg Museum & Visitor Services offers visitor information, area history, and walking tours. In FY22 visitation was 4,481, with the most visitors hailing from VA, NC, FL, PA, and NY.

DIGITAL KIOSKS

Seven new digital kiosks throughout the City feature visitor information, trail maps, QR Codes to download visitor guides & brochures, and information on upcoming city events and festivals.

Funding for the digital kiosks comes in part from the 2020 CARES Act for projects to assist with economic recovery and tourism promotion from the COVID-19 pandemic. Locations are the Percival’s Island Trail entrance, the Lynchburg Community Market, Old City Cemetery, Kemper Street Amtrak Station, University of Lynchburg, Randolph College and Lynchburg General Hospital.

POPLAR FOREST NEW ENTRANCE RIBBON CUTTING

RANDOLPH COLLEGE

Domestic tourism to the City of Lynchburg has recovered 120% from July 2019.

Source: Placer.ai

TOURISM SALES

In 2022, LYH hosted the spring meeting of the Virginia Association of Destination Marketing Professionals. In addition to weekenders, tourism includes things like meetings and conferences, sporting events and group tour travel.

As a result of efforts in FY 2022, the City of Lynchburg secured 60 groups/events across all our target sectors - sports, meetings and conferences and group travel - with an estimated economic impact of $10.94 million.

MEDIA FEATURES:

SOUTHERN LIVING

SOUTH'S BEST CITIES ON THE RISE TRAVEL & LEISURE

TOP 25 COLLEGE TOWNS

2021 CONNIE AWARD BY HILTON THE VIRGINIAN HOTEL

Blog Traffic

Our team continues to generate organic traffic through rich visitor focused content. This year we increased organic traffic by 19% (144k sessions), blog traffic by 90% (13k sessions) and total users by 23%.

Increased Open Rate

We focused on producing newsletters that drove engagement, increasing our open rates from an average of 29% to an average of 36% in Q4.

Outbound Referrals

As we draw digital visitors to the Tourism website, it's important we encourage those visitors to discover our local businesses. In the last year, we sent 44.5k website visitors to local business and Lynchburg event websites.

Digital Engagement

In an effort to continue to drive interest from target communities and draw them to Lynchburg, we ran paid advertising campaigns that generated 16k sessions through PPC (pay-per-click) and ~6k through targeted websites such as Virginia.org.

Social

Social Media was a significant focus for our Tourism team in FY22 and the results show. In comparison to FY21, we saw our social engagement increase 2x on Facebook (40k) and an increase of 18% (29k) on Instagram.

Website Traffic

Our team focused on creating content to drive traffic from social media and paid advertising to our website, increasing total sessions by 25% from 193,971 to 241,783.

MAGAZINE FEATURES:

MAGAZINE

LIVING

OUR STAFF

Marjette Upshur Director

Anna Bentson Assistant Director

Alisha Meador Economic Development Manager

Emelyn Gwynn Light Communications Manager

Andrew Marks Sales Manager

Clayton Copper Economic Development & Tourism Coordinator

Abigail May Digital Marketing Coordinator

Keesha Simon

Administrative Associate

Mauresa Nenadovich Event Operations Coordinator

Grace Curl

Communications Intern

LYNCHBURG MUSEUM & VISITOR SERVICES

Ted Delaney

Museum Director

Museum Experience Leaders

Cathy Dalton

Angelica Walker

LYH’S INCLUSIVE AND PROSPEROUS FUTURE IS BUILT UPON SIX VALUES :

OPPORTUNITY. We commit to economic opportunity for all residents and enterprises.

INNOVATION. We invest in the ideas and enterprises that create tomorrow’s solutions.

COLLABORATION. We build value-added collaborations among partners, businesses and organizations.

RESILIENCY. We prepare for long-term economic health and sustainability.

INCLUSION. We promote a sense of belonging and connection for all residents.

PUBLIC INVESTMENT. We invest in quality of place and community wellbeing to support job creation and attract investment.

Laura Crowe

Vincent Bruno

Noelle Baker

Evelyn McLane

THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

The Economic Development Authority of the City of Lynchburg is a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Virginia and serves as the incentive arm of the City. The Authority takes an active role in economic development efforts, pursuing investment and development opportunities, and elevating the economic profile of the City.

John M. Stone Chair Richard Tugman Vice Chair Pat Mosby Secretary-Treasurer

OFFICE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT & TOURISM CITY OF LYNCHBURG

Kimberly Soerensen Assistant SecretaryTreasurer Georgeann Snead Sackett Wood