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Tourism staff report record room nights and 52,000 attendees for 2024 events; pickleball drove lodging
Summary
City tourism director reported rising hotel‑motel revenues, a large 2024 pickleball event with more than 52,000 total attendees and ongoing recruitment of corporate loyalty partners; expenses and room‑night counts were presented as preliminary, unaudited figures.
Perla Tavera, director of economic development, tourism and planning for the City of Farmers Branch, briefed the council on tourism activity and hotel‑motel fund results. Tavera said tourism work is fully supported by hotel‑motel tax revenue and that the city’s hotel‑motel revenue projection was 3.1 (units not specified in the presentation) with unaudited receipts about 3.5 (units not specified). She credited the April 2024 eclipse and a fall pickleball series among the top drivers of increased occupancy.
Tavera said the tourism team supported roughly 122 events or group bookings and highlighted top event contributors including Schneider Electric, the Pickleball Championships, Southwest Airlines and Glory Revolution Retail. She said 13 corporations enrolled in a corporate loyalty program and that Southwest recently signed on as a partner. The city is working with the Dallas Sports Commission on potential opportunities tied to the 2026 FIFA World Cup and listed multi‑year events already scheduled for 2025, including a firefighter challenge in October and the Korean American National Sports Festival.
Tavera provided details for the pickleball activity: she said the city hosted eight associated events between Nov. 1 and Nov. 10, 2024; total reported attendance across the event period was over 52,000 (the presentation said that number counts total visitors, not only out‑of‑town guests); the tourism team attributed about 1,476 hotel room bookings to the pickleball branding (the presenter noted this does not include bookings through Expedia or Airbnb that do not carry the city’s tracking code). She reported an expense to the hotel‑motel fund of about $92,937.10 for the pickleball activity and said an amount of $300 was shown for general fund expense in the presentation (units and scale were not specified in the slide).
Council members praised the tourism team’s work and asked follow‑up questions about year‑over‑year attendance; staff said pickleball attendance increased compared with the prior year’s figure, which staff estimated at about 45,000–48,000. Tavera said staff will continue corporate outreach and partnership development, and councilmembers encouraged continued marketing and hotel partner engagement. No formal action was taken at the study session.
