$20 million rebound. Sports tourism in Rock Hill, York County recovers amid COVID-19

In April, one of York County’s most important industries went quiet.

Rock Hill and York County couldn’t hold scheduled events that month due to coronavirus concerns. That meant players on youth travel sports teams and their parents didn’t eat in local restaurants. They weren’t around to buy gas at local stations. Local hotel occupancy dropped.

And what’s worse, the event cancellations came on the cusp of summer, which is traditionally the busiest season for the York County tourism industry — an industry that has so many other York County businesses relying on it.

“Nobody saw it coming,” John Taylor told The Herald. Taylor is the city of Rock Hill’s Director of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.

Five months later, the 2020 summer has turned out to be lucrative.

After having no events in April, York County ended up hosting 53 events (52 of which were sports-related) from May to August, and many of those brought thousands of visitors to Rock Hill and Fort Mill on weekends. Some, like an AAU basketball tournament in early August, brought visitors on weekdays.

Data obtained by The Herald show that during this time, the county, in partnership with the city of Rock Hill, brought in almost $20 million in estimated economic impact. Thirty-five to 40 seasonal workers returned to work in Rock Hill facilities, Taylor said. And 200-300 people retained their jobs at local hotels, said Billy Dunlap, the CEO of marketing destination organization Visit York County.

But how did it happen?

How did the tourism economy sustain itself and its partners during the bleakest days of the pandemic?

“We knew there was going to be a light at the end of the tunnel, and we needed to be sure that our (partners) were still going to be in place, so when people started coming back to Rock Hill, when they started coming back to York County, all of the support services were going to be there,” Dunlap told The Herald earlier this month. “And I think we did a good job of that.

“We haven’t had any hotels close. We’ve had very few restaurants close. It was a true team effort to make sure all of that went off as smoothly as possible because there were several weeks where there wasn’t anything going on.”

Tracking York County’s progress from May to August

It’s widely known that tourism, and sports tourism specifically, runs in Rock Hill and York County’s proverbial blood. Investments through decades — from Cherry Park in the 80s, to the Rock Hill Tennis Center in 2005, to Manchester Meadows’ soccer fields in 2006, to the Rock Hill Sports and Event Center earlier this year — have been key attractions to the region just south of the Carolinas border. There has been a steady flow of sports tourism revenue powered by state-of-the-art facilities that residents and local schools could use. And that has led to a national reputation that likely will grow once the Carolina Panthers finish building and fully move into their headquarters and practice facility in Rock Hill.

So when the pandemic put American life on hold, Taylor and Dunlap knew athletes and event organizers would want to return to Rock Hill.

But when would that be? And could local businesses stay afloat long enough?

“In ... March and April, we went into support mode with our partners,” Dunlap told The Herald. “We went into support mode with our restaurants and hotels. Our attracts had all closed down for the most part, but we knew we needed to support those businesses. We needed to support our hotels because we needed them to be there when we started to come out.”

Visit York County was transparent with their partners about when events would begin again. They maintained a list on their website of local businesses that remained open during the pandemic. They also, in partnership with DHEC and South Carolina PRT, guided many restaurants through an initiative called Palmetto Priority, which was designed to help advertise which restaurants are going the extra mile in staying safe.

Soon, the state began opening up again.

In May, a few tourism events returned. In June, a Gov. Henry McMaster executive order permitted youth sports competition with or without spectators to begin, if they followed social distancing guidelines.

Then in July and August, sports and event tourism led to 36,529 hotel room reservations, per Visit York County data — mostly thanks to the indoor sports center hosting several high-profile, national travel basketball tournaments. The spectacles were jarring in size, particularly during a few-months stretch when coronavirus cases were surging and large gatherings were thought to be threatening.

But among city of Rock Hill and York County leaders, they appeared to be largely uncontroversial. And they were guaranteed money-makers.

“If you look at past numbers on a monthly basis, particularly over the July and August months, we are actually doing a lot better than we ever have,” Taylor said. “A lot of that’s got to do with the fact that we’ve added facilities, such as the indoor center. If this rings true and carries throughout the year, you’re going to be looking at over $45 to $50 million in economic impact, which — not from a county-wide perspective but from a city-wide perspective — it blows everything that we’ve been doing out of the water.”

Looking to the immediate future

Last weekend, in Rock Hill alone, an estimated 15,740 people were at Rock Hill’s various facilities. There was a Charlotte Independence Soccer Club tournament spread around athletic fields and another youth basketball tournament in the sports and event center. (The basketball tournament was canceled midway through the event this past weekend, after a fight broke out in the center on Saturday. According to an email from the tournament organizer that was later posted on Twitter, the Rock Hill Sports and Event Center canceled the event due to “overcrowding” and a “lack of security” following the incident. Taylor told The Herald the event was canceled because events in Rock Hill would not tolerate fighting.)

This weekend, there’s another 1,000-plus people expected to come to the indoor sports center for a basketball camp and tournament, and more visitors are expected at other Rock Hill facilities.

Deeper into the autumn, the city still will be busy making up for lost time: Most of the events that had to be canceled in March and April have been rescheduled for the fall, and the sports and event center is booked “every weekend in January” with volleyball tournaments, Dunlap said.

“For me, it’s kind of been a whirlwind of emotions, going from frustration, to anxiety, to ‘OK let’s focus,’ Taylor said. “And then going back to being cautiously optimistic about what’s going on now.”

Visit York County data

April

Hotel occupancy: 33.1%

0 events

$0 economic impact

May

Hotel occupancy: 49.2%

4 events

$42,697 estimated direct economic impact

June

Hotel occupancy: 52.5%

7 events

$3,662,819 estimated direct economic impact

July

Hotel occupancy: 51.2%

17 events in Rock Hill PRT facilities with an estimated direct economic impact of $8,150,233

3 events in Fort Mill facilities with an estimated direct economic impact of $278,966

August

Hotel occupancy: 46.7%

16 events in Rock Hill PRT facilities with an estimated direct economic impact of $6,065,154

6 events in Fort Mill facilities with an estimated direct economic impact of $1,484,930

Alex Zietlow

The Herald

Alex Zietlow writes about sports and the ways in which they intersect with life in York, Chester and Lancaster counties for The Herald, where he has been an editor and reporter since August 2019. Zietlow has won nine S.C. Press Association awards in his career, including First Place finishes in Feature Writing, Sports Enterprise Writing and Education Beat Reporting. He also received two Top-10 awards in the 2021 APSE writing contest and was nominated for the 2022 U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Rising Star award for his coverage of the Winthrop men’s basketball team.