O'Fallon City committee backs $38,800 tourism website plan after staff touts 1.6 million social views

The Finance & Administration Committee voted to forward a recommendation to the city council to hire Matchbox Creative to build a tourism-focused website for a $34,000 one-time build and $4,800 in annual support, a total of $38,800.

Sandy presented the tourism and community engagement coordinator's work and the website proposal, saying the role has boosted the city's social media presence. "I'm happy to report that over the last 90 days we've had 1.6 million social media views for the city of O'Fallon social media pages," she said, citing multi-platform content and partnerships.

Staff described the Matchbox bid as cost-competitive and well suited to sports and recreational tourism. The proposed site would be WordPress-based, mobile-responsive, and designed to host tourism pages, event promotion, sports-venue highlights and business listings. Staff said the rollout would start with the dedicated tourism site, later integrating downtown and economic-development content under the same architecture.

Councilmembers praised staff work while urging better economic-impact data. One councilmember said, "She has absolutely knocked it out of the park," referring to the coordinator's outreach. Members questioned an often-cited $60-per-night visitor-spending estimate, and staff said they could use tools such as Placer AI or commission a consultant to produce updated figures.

The committee recorded a roll-call approval and will send the Matchbox Creative agreement and scope to the full council for final authorization.