Visit Fort Worth
Opal Lee
Opal Lee speaks at the 2021 Visit Fort Worth Annual Meeting.
Visit Fort Worth's Annual Meeting & Breakfast is typically a lively fete, when the who's who of the city gather downtown at the Omni Fort Worth Hotel to celebrate the past year in tourism — complete with video montages and elaborate photo ops — often leaving with a reignited sense of pride about the place they call home.
Of course, the event (if we may use the oft-repeated phrase) "looks a little different this year," with venue occupancy cut to less than 50% and 300 attendees streaming the meeting via Zoom. This year's meeting was also less about tourism growth and more about post-COVID recovery, moving forward from a year when hotel occupancy reached its lowest point at 20% between March and May.
Still, president and CEO Bob Jameson said Visit Fort Worth is looking at 2021 with a sense of optimism, and the Annual Meeting was not short on things to celebrate.
A few highlight from the event:
Opal Lee receives the 2021 Hospitality Award.
Every year, Visit Fort Worth honors an organization or community member that puts a significant spotlight on the city (past honorees have included Leon Bridges, Mayor Betsy Price, and DFW Airport). This year's honoree was activist Opal Lee, who last year garnered approximately 1.5 million signatures on a petition to make Juneteenth a national holiday — thanks to the help of big-name celebrities like Lupita Nyong’o, Jamie Foxx, and Diddy. Upon receiving the award, Lee delivered quite the acceptance speech, weighing in on her future endeavors, the mayoral race, and other topics.
Chef Kevin Martinez receives the 2021 Beyond Award.
Also honored at the Annual Meeting was Tokyo Cafe chef Kevin Martinez, who received the Beyond Award for outstanding service in the city's hospitality industry. Last year, Martinez wrangled several of the city's top chefs together to create care packages for service industry workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic, as well as anyone else in need. According to Visit Fort Worth, Martinez and his partners helped facilitate about 48,000 free meals.
Fort Worth doubles down on efforts to promote music.
Visit Fort Worth for the first time took part in an economic impact study led by London-based consulting group Sound Diplomacy, analyzing the economic impact of local music in the city. The report, released Friday, delves into the city's available resources and outlines 26 action items to further the local music industry, from creating a permanent Music Office to outlining post-pandemic recovery goals. Read the executive summary of the report here.
The city looks toward growth in sports.
The Fort Worth Sports Commission is also working with the city and other partners to create an approximately 100-acre youth sports complex for soccer, lacrosse, and other outdoor sports. During the Annual Meeting, Jameson said the complex would realize an immediate impact of $16 million in direct spending each year upon opening.
"More importantly, when our young people have access to sports, they are more likely to find personal and academic success," he said.
Visit Fort Worth, DFW Airport outline pandemic recovery efforts.
Additionally, Visit Fort Worth and DFW Airport outlined their respective priorities for COVID-19 recovery. Jameson said Visit Fort Worth is focusing on rebuilding the hospitality industry through community-based tourism, meetings, and sports events (like the upcoming Bassmaster Classic and NASCAR All-Star Race at Texas Motor Speedway); investing in creativity, particularly in music; and entering a Memorandum of Understanding with the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce to share marketing and research resources, collaborate to grow sports tourism, and help build business through meetings.
Meanwhile, DFW Airport will focus on creating jobs, mainly through construction projects like the renovation of runways and the extension of Terminal D, which will add four new gates. At the Annual Meeting, CEO Sean Donohue said the airport created 4,000 construction jobs during the pandemic.
Another priority is helping business partners, particularly in concessions; and one way the airport did so was by eliminating concession partners' rent payments to help keep them afloat during the pandemic.
"While we all know how difficult and challenging these last almost 12 months have been, we are equally fervent in our knowledge that things are going to come back," Donohue said. "There is going to be a recovery, and there is a tremendous pent-up demand when it comes to hospitality."
