Kerri Camp says the much-anticipated “Totality Tyler” solar eclipse could lead to an “astronomical” economic impact that will ripple through Smith County. Can this celestial marvel really inject $100 million into the local economy? Explore the potential for hotels, restaurants and small businesses eager to turn this 4-day spectacle into a revenue extravaganza. Uncover how a strategic blend of community development projects and East Texas hospitality might leave a lasting legacy.
As the excitement builds for “Totality Tyler,” Camp pulls back the curtain on the efforts that make such an event possible. From the importance of community engagement to the role of volunteers, find out what it takes to organize an event that rivals the pomp of the Kentucky Derby, with festivities stretching beyond the main attraction.
TRANSCRIPT
LANDESS:
The world calls it the “Great American Total Solar Eclipse.” Here in Smith County we’re calling it “Totality Tyler Solar Eclipse.” I’m UT Tyler Radio News Director Mike Landess. Whatever you call this once-in-a-lifetime event, it’s coming April 8 and some predict that Smith County’s population could double. UT Tyler Radio Connects with Management and Marketing professor Kerri Camp to find out more about the possible economic impact. We’re talking about millions, aren’t we?
CAMP:
Absolutely. When you’re talking about double the size of Smith County and the economic impact, Dr. Ray Perryman, who many know as an economic expert in the region, he’s estimated that this could, if the population doubles, like it’s predicted, could be a $100 million economic impact just for Smith County.
LANDESS:
I read somewhere that he was saying that beyond the area in East Texas, it might be $200 million.
CAMP:
Oh, absolutely. Sulphur Springs has an initiative as well. The one I know the most about is Totality Tyler, but there are many different communities, the economic impact to this area and a carryover effect. One of the things when I was talking to Visit Tyler, they had said that they’re hoping that people who’ve never been to Tyler before will come and see all that Tyler has to offer and so there will be a carryover effect, a residual effect of this event to have come back and say, “Well, I want to come back to Tyler in the future. I didn’t realize Tyler had so many things to offer from a tourism perspective.”
LANDESS:
And we’re building that all the time. Perryman claims that as much as $6 million might go to hotels, $15 million to restaurants, $23 million spent on fuel and other retail sales. Does that seem wildly optimistic or does it seem realistic?
CAMP:
No, I think it’s actually very realistic. This is challenging to estimate what the economic impact will be because there’s no ticket sales. Now, there are room reservations for hotels. That’s the best guess that we can have at this point. And the hotels in Tyler aren’t completely booked, but most of them are getting booked. And the event, I think the folks in Tyler have been really smart about this event. They’ve actually created as a 4-day event, from the 5th through the 8th, and so a lot of the hotels are requiring multiple night stays. It’ll give people time to explore all the other things. It gives them several days up until the event of the total eclipse. It’ll give them many other things to explore around Tyler. So, because it’s a 4-day event that they’ve been marketing for over a year, and they have many community partnerships — everything from partnerships with TJC to other community organizations, I think this is going to be wildly successful. So I think those estimates that Dr. Perryman has projected, I think, are probably pretty accurate.
LANDESS:
Now people who come into Smith County for Totality Tyler are going to find a city whose growth is apparent in the various building projects that are going on just about everywhere you go. A medical school, new courthouse, parking garage, expansion right here on the UT Tyler campus, the School of Nursing as we come across as a pretty dynamic city.
CAMP:
Oh, absolutely. And then there’s the new convention center, the Brookshire convention center. There’s just so many wonderful things. There’s new parks, there’s new trails, there’s lakes that people aren’t aware of. There’s just many things that I think the community of Tyler is doing really well to attract people to this area and realize that this can really be a tourism destination.
LANDESS:
In talking about the different projects that they want to build, I mean with the new courthouses, for instance. That’s got to be a while before it gets here. When the courthouse arrives, they will have redone the entire square. They’re talking about traffic circle, they’ve got all kinds of things that they’ve got in mind, but that’s down the road. This is a little bit before that. Hopefully we’ll get some interest in, how will we get that message out to the people that are coming to visit perhaps for the first time, or the first time for an event?
CAMP:
Well, that’s the one thing that I would encourage all community members to do for this 4-day event is, when you come across visitors, we want to show that East Texas hospitality. Talk about all the exciting things that are happening, because this can be an investment for Tyler’s future. The people will say, “Wow, I’ve never met such friendly people. I didn’t know there were so many things to do.” You know the downtown area, as you mentioned, is growing. It’s, there’s many new things, lofts and restaurants and bars, and it, there’s some exciting things happening in Tyler that I think people aren’t aware of. I think for many times it was called, UT Tyler was called the best kept secret in East Texas, which, from a marketing professor’s perspective, is a horrible thing.
LANDESS:
That’s a terrible thing.
CAMP:
We don’t want it to be a little secret. When you’re looking at tourism and the amount of economic impact it can have on this community, the jobs and wages and the small business owners — all of those will be greatly impacted by this. So I take it as a personal responsibility, and I hope that everybody else will too to say we need to show them that East Texas hospitality, talk about all the wonderful things that are happening in this community.
LANDESS:
I got to imagine that there’s some significant bucks in the swag that will be generated by this event. I’m thinking commemorative glasses, the T-shirts, hats, drink koozies, that kind of thing.
CAMP:
Yeah, I see everything on, I obviously follow a lot of this on social media, and I’ve been seeing that there’s a new cookie, one of the cookie company bakeries in town has a logo for the totality eclipse, Totality Tyler. And so, I think it’s an opportunity for small business owners to create, be innovative in their marketing. People who come for this event, because it’s a historic natural phenomenon that most people will never see again, I think they should take advantage of coming up with that swag, those personal items that can commemorate the event. It’s a great opportunity for small business owners, even those cottage businesses that don’t really have a formal business: T-shirts and all these other types of swag. I think it would be a great opportunity for people.
LANDESS:
Over these past few years, Visit Tyler, Heart of Tyler — those groups continue to grow and there it appears to me that they’re being fueled by the 30, 40-somethings are making that happen. Tell me about your impression of that.
CAMP:
Well, I’m a little bit biased because the Vice President of Marketing for Visit Tyler is one of our UT Tyler alums. She was a marketing major, and so she is in that role and so she’s been quite passionate. I think the younger demographic maybe is embracing social media and getting the word out, because that’s really one easy way to connect with people. So I do think that they are, and then the Tyler Young Professionals is another organization in the community that they are quite active, and so I do give a lot of credit to the younger folks, that the younger professionals who are in this community. I think they see the potential for Tyler. I don’t think we’ve reached it yet. I think this is a really pivotal point. I think there’s been some, you know, major things that have happened with the medical school. That’s going to be life-changing for the citizens in this, in this area. But I do think there’s many other things that are going to be really exciting time.
LANDESS:
What kinds of lessons can be learned from this event before, during and after that’ll be useful to UT Tyler students?
CAMP:
Well, I think that the planning — any kind of a big event especially something new that nobody has ever experienced — it takes a lot of planning. The folks at Visit Tyler said they’ve been planning over a year for this event, and they mentioned things like things that we might not think about, like transportation, the I-20 corridor. They’re having to work with the highway department to make sure that there’s going to be traffic flow and parking issues and people are being encouraged to rent out their homes and their driveways and parking lots to people to park. So all of this takes planning, and so I think that’s a good lesson for UT Tyler students is that if you’re going to plan a big event, make sure that you get all the stakeholders involved. It can’t be run by just one organization. For something to be successful, you’ve got to get every stakeholder engaged, and engaged early in the process. And then when you’re, when you’re implementing it, making sure that you’ve got a lot of hands on deck. I’m sure they’re going to be asking, as we get closer to that time, for volunteers to be able to help and make sure there’s great coordination, because we all know that if we go to an event and it’s not well run, then that impression will carry over to the community as well, that well, they didn’t have, they had an opportunity and they missed it. So I think that we’ll see great implementation of that. And then I think students should get involved. I mean just for them as well. This is a natural phenomenon that they will probably never see again, and so it’s one way that they can take, you know, to be involved within this community and then also learn how anybody who’s interested in event planning or city leadership from a political perspective, I think this would be a great opportunity to try to get involved in some way.
LANDESS:
What would your hope be for the success of Totality Tyler? What would be the desired result after it’s all come and gone?
CAMP:
Well, I hope that that people will have a good experience, that they’ll say, “Wow.” This was you know, it’s a, I think in Tyler, what I’ve heard, it is supposed to be about a minute and a half of total darkness. Now there’s other places that are in East Texas and the route is about four minutes at the maximum, but we’re supposed to have total darkness for about a minute and a half. So that’s just a minute and a half, but it’s these other days that lead up to it, these other activities. I’m hoping that people walk away and say, “Yeah, it was just a minute and a half, and it was something that I’ve experienced that I’ll never experience again. But wow, the people were nice and I didn’t realize there was so much to do in this area.” So I hope that’s what we’ll take away from this event.
LANDESS:
As you’re describing that, I’m thinking to myself this is like the Kentucky Derby. I mean the race. The race is over with in a blink of an eye, but all of the ceremony that goes on before and the ceremony that goes on after goes on for hours on national television.
CAMP:
Yeah, that’s why I was excited when I heard that they had put this up as a 4-day event. I said, “Wow, that’s brilliant.” Because you know people, because hotels could just do a one-night stay you could come in the night before. But because it’s now an event with many different activities going on during that 5th through the 8th, now hotels can, and we can as taxpayers, we take more advantage because there are tourism tax dollars that come in. So if they stay multiple days at the hotel, it helps the community financially as well. So I thought that was a really smart planning on the part of our community leaders to say, “Let’s make this more than a minute and a half event. Let’s make this something to celebrate the community of Tyler,” which I think is really exciting.
LANDESS:
Any final thoughts you’d like to share concerning this event and the marketing thereof and the management thereof?
CAMP:
Well, I just think it’s been fun that to watch what they’ve done. They’ve created logos, again to watch businesses start to jump on. I think the excitement is just beginning to build as we get closer to it. From a marketing professor’s perspective, I’ll be watching all of the social media. I’ll be watching what businesses do to come up with new products and a way to be engaged with this. So I’m excited to see what will happen over the next few weeks.
LANDESS:
Thanks for listening as UT Tyler Radio Connects with Management and Marketing professor Kerri Camp. To share, listen again or for a transcript of this interview, visit our website UTTylerRadio.org. To be notified about future episodes, subscribe to “UT Tyler Radio Connects” on your favorite podcast platform. For UT Tyler Radio News, I’m Mike Landess.
(Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain phonetic spellings and other spelling and punctuation errors. Grammar errors contained in the original recording are not typically corrected.)
