SALT LAKE CITY — Believing that tourism is the "front door" to economic development in northern Utah, Visit Salt Lake and Sports Salt Lake hosted their fourth annual Sports Tourism Summit at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
Thursday's speakers focused on the future of the industry and what they believe will provide the keys to unlock even more doors.
“We’re launching an AI-powered concierge, an AI visitors guide. Ask it a question, this is to help visitors kind of plan their trip, where to go,” explained playeasy.com cofounder and CEO, Sean Flaherty.
The conversations spanned from AI to NIL and what's next for collegiate athletics.
“Everything changed this last July, now we’re in a revenue-share environment," said University of Utah Athletic Director Mark Harlan. "So now we are paying our students for their services. So that’s $20.5 million in additional budget money.”
National data suggests the strongest growth can be found at any local park.
“Between 2023 and 2024, we saw 314 million sports travelers in the US. The really interesting part of this is participatory made up 65% of that,” shared Clay Partain, Chief Sports Officer with Sports Salt Lake.
Participatory, as in youth and amateur sports.
“I think it’s become one of the people’s non-negotiables for their families,” added Visit Salt Lake President and CEO Kaitlin Eskelson.
Even though Rice-Eccles Stadium or Delta Center attracts fans for spectator sports by the thousands, people are spending more and staying longer overall for those participatory events, and it’s become a focus for Visit Salt Lake.
“Sports tourism in the youth and amateur space is about one-third of what we’re now doing as an organization,” shared Eskelson. “It helps us pay less in taxes, it creates more money for local venues, for the residents."
Eskelson claimed the hospitality industry supports 56,000 jobs in the county, and the additional dollars coming from tourism bring an estimated $1,700 tax reduction per household in Salt Lake County each year. Because of that, leaders are looking to further harness Salt Lake County's potential as they build towards returning to the Olympic stage in 2034.
“There’s this amazing runway between now and 2034 that we have an opportunity to bring national and international events into our market," said Partain. "You name the sport, we can probably host it in Salt Lake.”
