Warren County tourism continues to play a crucial role in the local economy with its cars, caverns and culture enticing visitors to spend more and more of their dollars in southcentral Kentucky.

Mike Mangeot, commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Tourism, visited with industry leaders at the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, calling Bowling Green the “anchor” of the region.

“It’s got so many unique features that draw people from all over the world,” Mangeot said. “It’s really the entry from I-65 to the South, so it’s incredibly important to us.”

Those features and that location contributed to the $329.8 million in direct tourism spending Bowling Green and Warren County enjoyed in 2022, good for the fifth-highest county total in Kentucky and comfortably ahead of the $287.7 million that came in through 2021.

According to 2022 figures shared by Mangeot, the county’s tourism industry supported over 3,850 jobs and generated $37.1 million in state and local taxes for a total economic impact of $450.7 million.

The local numbers played a part in the state’s record-breaking 2022 for tourism, which saw almost $13 billion in economic impact and $8.9 billion spent across the commonwealth.

“That generated about $937 million in taxes for state and local governments. Without that, every household in Kentucky would have to pay about another $536,” Mangeot said. “Tourism as an economic driver – you really can’t overemphasize its importance.”

Michael Nunn, president of the Southern Kentucky Hospitality Association, said things were going well for the industry before it was battered by COVID-19.

“Hospitality had record years here going into the pandemic. We were on the uptick,” Nunn said. “The pandemic obviously stopped everything, and coming out no one knew what was going to happen.”

He credited federal funding for infrastructure, as well as the state’s investment of $75 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds into Kentucky tourism, for helping place things back on the rails.

“We’re back,” Nunn said. “We’re better.”

Mangeot said that from a “domestic leisure” standpoint, tourism has recovered on a state and national level. But there are still some sectors struggling to regain their footing.

He said international travel to the Bluegrass State is still down, something he partially attributed to a wait list for visas in Washington, D.C.

Once that opens up, Mangeot said the state has “primed the pump” for direct international traffic thanks to the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport’s new flight to London.

Nunn said government and business travel – along with the conferences and meetings that accompany them – have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.

“Not even close,” Nunn said. “Those are things we count on.”

He said that weekends are plenty busy, and that events like the Holley LSFest do a great job of filling hotel rooms, but it’s the “other times that we’re still missing.”

Mangeot said it might take another year for meetings and conventions to perk back up, “maybe late 2024 before it gets back to pre-pandemic levels.”

While hotel occupancies are up, Nunn said hotel staffing has not risen to meet it.

Nunn, the general manager of Bowling Green’s Hampton Inn, said that staffing issues were “unbelievably bad” for the first 18 months coming out of COVID-19 before improving slightly and then plateauing.

He pointed to a June survey completed by the American Hotel & Lodging Association, which found that 82% of hotels polled were experiencing a staff shortage.

“I think that number is probably higher in this area,” Nunn said. “There’s nobody in Bowling Green that would consider themselves fully staffed. We’re all still looking for people.”

According to Nunn, this was not how things were before the pandemic.

“I’ve been at my hotel for a long time, and I’ve been fully staffed almost the entire time I’ve been here except for the last two years,” Nunn said.

He said the tourism boom is a “double-edged sword,” as more travelers warrants more employees, and that the staffing issue won’t be going away anytime soon.

In the meantime, Mangeot said the state will continue its work to convert one-time visitors into repeat Kentucky travelers.

“Our research shows that once we get them here, they come back time and time again,” he said.