City of Morgan Hill Bikeways, Trails, Parks and Recreation Master Plan

6 East Monroe Street

Fifth Floor

Chicago, Illinois 60603

Phone: 312.447.2010

Fax: 312.444.1125

Section 7: Recommendations | May 2017

Sports Market Business Strategy – Morgan Hill, CA

PAGE 101

which could be established under the umbrella of a DMO, could work with all parties to put on the event,

attract participants, and get hotels and restaurants on board so that the full economic benefits of an event can

be captured in Morgan Hill.

Nationally, such DMO’s are also able to secure regional and state tourism grants that will help with marketing

efforts to attract events to the marketplace. Additionally, a regional director of special events/ festivals should

be appointed who would centralize event scheduling and prepare a monthly event calendar. This effort would

help minimize any doubling up of events on particular days and create a common event marketing strategy,

allowing for greater attendance at each event.

DMO’s are typically setup as not-for profit organizations funded through a variety of sources. Often the

funding will come from sales tax, hotel room night tax, or food and beverage tax. Revenues generated by a

funding source should be dedicated to tourism marketing efforts, incentives to attract events and tourism

product development projects. The organizational structure of a DMO should consist of an advisory board

and a smaller executive board.

Partnerships and collaborations with the State, other regional tourism organizations will all be helpful in

moving the destination and the DMO forward. Primary partnerships could be established with the Chamber

of Commerce (and other business associations), Downtown Organizations, Wineries and economic

development groups. The new DMO should have a concentrated focus on the leisure market, SMERFE

(Societal, Military, Educational, Religious Fraternal and Ethnic) market, social event market,

convention/meeting market and sporting event market to bring a multi-purpose inventory of events in

Morgan Hill (This will help protect against becoming too highly leveraged in one particular event market).

The future development of tourism products in Morgan Hill should be a major priority for the new DMO.

Lastly, the DMO and associated stakeholders should prepare a destination master plan, which determines

activity centers, development areas, potential product development, timelines, cost projections, etc.

STEP TWO – Update Existing Facilities

Similar to Step One, the City should continue down the same path of capitalizing and fully leveraging existing

assets within the City. The Outdoor Sports Center and Aquatics Center generate the most visitors for

sporting events in the City.

1. AQUATICS CENTER

The Aquatics Center is well-positioned for the future and recent upgrades to the facility have made it a

suitable venue for everything from recreational swimming to large swim meets sanctioned by USA

Swimming. We also observed solid leadership from an operations and management perspective. At this time

we feel the Aquatics Center is well-managed and successfully attracts several large swim meets each season. If