The Kalamazoo-Battle Creek region's tourism and entertainment cluster employed 6,123 workers in 1995. The industry consists of museums, sports facilities, and other recreational services. The exporting component consists of attractions that draw external tourists: like Kellogg's Cereal City, Full Blast Water Park, and Binder Park Zoo, which constitute $750 million of local tourist revenues. Most customer do not view the region as a tourist destination but as a brief stop on the highway and generally do not spend a night.

In order to develop a robust tourism and entertainment cluster, the regional industry needs to evolve into a "short trip" destination. Overnight stays have a much higher economic impact on the region than simple day trips, and thus constitute an important component of a competitive tourism cluster. For example, 10,000 tourism days of visitors can be accounted by 10,000 visitors coming in for a one-day event or 1,000 visitors for 10 events. If these one-day excursions were spread over a three month period they would generate 18 short-term jobs. Ten thousand visitors who stay the night generate 128 short-term jobs, a much greater amount of economic activity.

Benchmarking: How Do We Compare?

Comparing the performance of the region's tourism industry to national or regional trends is very difficult because tourist-related businesses consist of several different industries ranging from eating and drinking establishments to recreation, hotels and motels. Currently, the only comparison data available are the earnings of our region's hotels and motels which show we have out-performed national trends. Indeed, from 1986 to 1996, 32.5 percent of the $16.7 million in earnings generated by the region's lodging establishments resulted in its outperforming the national average.