3Lakes 1 BEAUTIFUL
POWERFUL
REGION
GENEVA • COMO • DELAVAN
COMBINING FORCES TOWN OF LYONS • CITY OF LAKE GENEVA • VILLAGE OF FONTANA • TOWN OF DELAVAN • TOWN OF GENEVA • VILLAGE OF WILLIAMS BAY TOWN OF LINN • CITY OF DELAVAN
LETTER FROM VISIT LAKE GENEVA PRESIDENT, ED SVITAK It is with great pleasure that VISIT Lake Geneva has partnered with Travel Wisconsin to create a publication to HONOR Tourism Week which was first established by Congress in 1983. With Walworth County generating the sixth largest tourism economic impact in the State out of 72 counties…we are fortunate to live in an area that people crave to come visit–and experience every day! In 2017, the State witnessed over 20 billion dollars in economic impact from tourism and Walworth County garnered over $729 million of this! This impact supports hotels, restaurants, attractions and retail stores that employ close to 7,000 people. Lake Geneva has been blessed to be a “lure” to visitors since founded by the first known white settler Christopher Payne in 1836. He was instrumental in the development of Lake Geneva and Lake Como.
Mars Resort located on Lake Como
Let’s take a walk down memory lane on the hotels and towns that were instrumental in the development of tourism in the Lake Geneva Region.
In 1871, the Chicago Fire caused an abundance of Chicago families to relocate to their summer homes during the rebuilding of Chicago. The construction and maintenance of these mansions, as well as household employment, began to develop a separate industry in the town which would become known as Tourism!
as a place for members of the Mabie Circus to stay. When the circus was bought by Barnum and Bailey, it became the winter circus headquarters. Famously, when one of Barnum and Bailey’s stage elephants died, the circus owners ordered that the elephant be pushed out onto the middle of the lake (conveniently the lake was frozen for the winter). Come springtime and thaw, the semipreserved elephant’s corpse sank under the water once the ice was sufficiently thin. Now called the Lake Lawn Resort it is the longest
Stone Manor - Located between the Town of Linn and the City of Lake Geneva
In April 1873, at the foot of Broad Street, Lake Geneva’s first resort hotel, the four-story Whiting House was built by David T. Whiting. Unfortunately, it burned to the ground on July 9, 1894. It would take 17 years for the next hotel to be built on this property and in 1911 The Hotel Geneva was designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright and built on the old Whiting House location. The long, low “prairie style” building opened in August,1912 and served as Lake Geneva’s largest resort hotel for almost six decades. It was demolished in January 1970. In 1879 the original Lake Lawn Lodge on Lake Delavan opened
Part of a Celebration of 140 begins with honoring the Barnum & Bailey Circus that is a part of the rich history of Lake Lawn Resort.
active hotel in our region, celebrating 140 years in 2019! Lake Geneva has remained a “getaway” for people coming from Chicago and the entire Midwest since the late 1800’s, however, the Chicago and Northwestern Railway trains that carried many folks from Chicago since the 1870’s ceased operations in the early 1970’s. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1. CONTINUED ON PAGE 4.
2017
TOTAL TOURISM BUSINESS IMPACT COLLABORATION IS KEY!
By Ed Svitak, VISIT Lake Geneva President
The question often comes to me on how you market a destination with numerous municipalities that all offer a unique experience and history and wish to keep their individual identities? Not an easy task is my answer! VISIT Lake Geneva’s overall mission is to bring more people (visitors) to the area; get them to stay longer; and spend more money, while serving as a catalyst for destination-wide cooperation and economic development. Additionally, we look to foster business to business collaboration, advancement, and inclusion and community wellness. We are funded by tourism room tax collected from visitors. We represent Cities of Lake Geneva and Delavan, the Townships of Delavan, Geneva, Linn and Lyons…as well as the Villages of Fontana and Williams Bay. We recently contracted with a branding consultant (North Star Destination Strategies) to help us create a message that is totally inclusive of all we have to offer and can be used as an “Umbrella’” brand when the process is complete in the fall of 2018. The process will include focus groups and interviews with key stakeholders, municipal leaders, community members, visitors and the general public by North Star members who will conduct these one-on-one interviews and focus group for the purposes of defining our DNA and crafting our creative statement. It is evident that bringing together eight municipalities with varying identities and strategies will entail a comprehensive and collaborative plan. I have been encouraged by the dialogue that has begun… and we at VISIT Lake Geneva look forward to collaborating a POWER of ONE regional message. This does not mean that any one municipality will lose the focus on their individuality–it simply will allow us to utilize our marketing dollars and resources in an efficient manor that will continue to position the REGION as the PREMIER Resort destination of the Midwest. The numbers outlined in this publication tell the story of our economic impact from employment to taxes and development. These three things are vitally important, but there is one other that is imperative to our success and that is COMMUNITY! Our dedication to educate and provide opportunity to the residents of our numerous communities is paramount. We need all residents to be ambassadors to the region and we can help accomplish this via supporting local programs and education. Our staff at VISIT Lake Geneva looks forward to working with all of you for the betterment of our Region!
COLLABORATION IS THE KEY!
WALWORTH COUNTY
$729.3 MILLION
WALWORTH COUNTY
RANKED #6 OUT OF 72 COUNTIES IN TOTAL TOURISM IMPACT, UP 3.01% FROM 2016 #1 MILWAUKEE COUNTY ($3,550.7M) #2 DANE COUNTY ($2,136.3M) #3 SAUK COUNTY ($1,377.5M) #4 WAUKESHA COUNTY ($1,442.0M) #5 BROWN COUNTY ($1,110.2M) #6 WALWORTH COUNTY ($729.3M) #7 OUTGAMIE COUNTY ($610.6M) #8 DOOR COUNTY ($456.9M) #9 LA CROSSE COUNTY ($426.5M) #10 EAU CLAIRE COUNTY ($404.3M)
EMPLOYMENT
6,938 JOBS
LABOR INCOME
$179.7 M
STATE & LOCAL TAXES
$66.2 M
V I S I T
L A K E
WEBSITE - 2017 VISITLAKEGENEVA.COM 2,543,535 PAGE VIEWS
2017 DIGITAL VISITORS MAGAZINE
G E N E V A E-NEWSLETTER 47,902 SUBSCRIBERS
VISIT LAKE GENEVA APP
10,697 PAGE VIEWS 9,817 UNIQUE VISITS
11,374 SESSIONS
LAKE GENEVA VISITOR CENTER
33,011 PAGE LIKES
12,767 WALK-INS 5,153 PHONE INQUIRIES
2 0 1 7 V I S I TO R S P E N D I N G I N W I S CO N S I N
$20.6 BILLION
ECONOMIC IMPACT
VISITOR TRAVEL TOPPED 110 MILLION VISITS IN 2017 VISITOR SPENDING PER TRIP INCREASED 3.2%
5.5% RECREATION & ENTERTAINMENT 4.3% FOOD & BEVERAGE 3.1% LODGING 0.2% RETAIL
In 1963, The Abbey Resort opened in Fontana with plenty of fanfare due to the unique architecture and construction challenges. Construction of the resort in 1962-63 was anything but simple. The Abbey Harbor was excavated by hydraulic dredging of 242,000 cubic yards of earth, which in turn was pumped back onto The Abbey property, raising the land six feet. The official groundbreaking in 1962, presided over by Gov. Gaylord Nelson, was the beginning of a $4 million undertaking. Original plans included a 225 room hotel, convention facilities, a 250 slip marina in the man-made harbor, and indoor and outdoor pool to complete what was the Midwest’s largest resort at the time. In May of 1968, Hugh Hefner cut the ribbon on the
TOURISM TOUCHES US ALL
TOURISM DOLLARS
$$$ Manny - Hotel Maintenance Kathy - Local Attraction Employee “My wife and I bought our first home last year…Now I have year-round work with overtime in the busy months…My wife and I have good jobs and feed our family thanks to the visitors that come.”
$$$ Hugh Hefner and the Bunnies pouring water into the lobby fountain for the opening of the Playboy Club Resort in Lake Geneva.
Playboy Club Resort in the Town of Lyons. The recognition both nationally and internationally catapulted this all-inclusive resort as the top 1980’s Midwest resort destination. The national recession in the early 80’s would be the downfall of this resort, going into disrepair by 1992, until the Marcus Corporation rescued the property and renovated it into The Grand Geneva Resort and Spa…which has become a Four Diamond Property for over 30 years. In 1973, the Town of Geneva welcomed the Interlaken Resort on the shores of Lake Como, featuring a spa, indoor and outdoor pools and views of Lake Como. Currently called The Ridge Hotel it offers golf packages on three legendary golf courses at their sister property Geneva National. In the 1990’s the advent of the “hotel-condo” segment of our industry led to the new development of Harbor Shores, The Cove, Mill Creek and Bella Vista in downtown Lake Geneva as well as Timber Ridge and Holiday Inn Vacation Club on the campus of the Grand Geneva in Lyons. The Delavan Lake Resort in the Town of Delavan and the The Geneva Inn located in the Town of Linn also joined our beautiful offerings We are fortunate to have great hotels, resorts, vacation rentals and BnB’s for visitors to stay in. Our three lakes and eight municipalities in the Lake Geneva Region are blessed with the natural beauty and ambiance that welcome approximately 1.7 million visitors annually! Not bad for a 19 mile stretch of land that has a population of less than 30,000 people. ‘Small but mighty’ is an excellent way to describe our unique and boutique region. We hope you enjoy the information provided in this publication---and THANK YOU for being an ambassador to YOUR Lake Geneva Region!
Jason - Insurance Agent “Manny is my customer and I helped him with homeowner’s insurance and car insurance”
$$$ Kevin - Local Carpenter “Jason hired me to build him a shed and replace old windows on his house”
$$$ Mary - Retail Store Cashier/Single Mom “Kevin buys all his weekly groceries at this store.”
$$$ Cynthia - Preschool Daycare Assistant “I look after Mary’s son when she goes to work”
TOURISM DOLLARS TOUCH US ALL FROM EMPLOYMENT, TO PAYING FOR THE ROADS WE DRIVE ON. LET US CELEBRATE AND EMBRACE OUR VISITORS EVERY DAY.