Lincoln Convention and Visitor Bureau’s executive director Jeff Maul says generating destination facilities will be the key to bringing more people to the area in future years. On LNK Today Friday Maul said they are exploring several ideas to improve tourism opportunities.
Maul says it’s important that Lincoln build take advantage of the the youth sports tourism world. “It’s a booming market. Worldwide they anticipate by 2026 it’s going to be a $77.6 billion dollar industry,” Maul says.
He says Lincoln needs to build better and more outdoor youth sports fields. “For baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, bocce. We’ve done a really good job of getting better with indoor facilities, with Kinetic, The LSF and Speedway Village, but we need more,” Maul says.
Maul says the convention market is also booming and is starting to comeback following the pandemic. Maul says Lincoln will continue to utilize all of the hotels in the city, but he says the city is greatly short of convention space. “I’ll call it a convention center, an exhibit hall, a way to enhance existing convention space that we have in the downtown area. We’ve got to get better there.”
Maul says Lincoln also needs a year around attraction to keep bringing in tourism dollars. “An indoor-outdoor water park. Great Wolf Lodge is a great example.” Maul says he’s confident that improving in these three areas is what will keep Lincoln going in the right direction.