We locals experience opportunity for economic and social — not inhabitant — growth.

 

By David Dindak

David Dindak

Greetings, happy Mo-Hillians!

Many of us remember K-Mart (now Home Depot) being the place to shop in Morgan Hill.  Loved those Blue Light Specials! (LOL) Our city has grown so much since then — and many cringe at the thought of further development.

This month’s topic is on an industry that produces a lot of advantages for a city such as ours, using resources we already have.

Tourism is an important part of a fruitful economy with several benefits. It boosts business and tax revenue as visitors provide additional incremental spending on dining, entertainment, and shopping. It creates local jobs employing local talent and opportunity to enhance the hospitality experience that locals enjoy, too.

It also creates a sense of pride and cultural exchange between visitors and locals, with less burden on existing infrastructure. Visitors come, experience what we have to offer, and go back home.

Like any good stock portfolio, tourism diversifies public revenues going toward new roads, parks, public services, and possibly better schools. Thus, we locals experience opportunity for economic and social — not inhabitant — growth.

So how do tourism travelers find out what we have to offer? Enter Visit Morgan Hill. This is a tourism marketing organization funded by the MHTBID (Morgan Hill Tourism Business Improvement District). It’s an assessment on hotel stays passed on to Visit Morgan Hill with the goal of generating awareness of our restaurants, wineries, farms, parks, venues and sports facilities.

There are four reasons to visit Morgan Hill this season that you can share with your out of town friends and family. We’re located for north and south bound travelers that need a stop on their holiday road trips or a quick, easy escape from the city or Central Valley. There’s a connective culinary culture as our restaurant scene is a true community experience where local chefs, wines, brews and farm products converge. It’s also a chill, laid back hamlet with family-owned wineries and farms offering fun, seasonal outings. Lastly, we make holiday shopping an enjoyable experience, with locally crafted and curated retail shops and events like Sidewalk Saturday, Ladies’ Night and Saturday Farmer’s Market.

Here’s Visit Morgan Hill’s fall-winter promo blog: www.visitmorganhill.org/blog/4-reasons-to-visit.

Historically, people outside our city did not know there were so many amenities. Visit Morgan Hill is the resource directory for those visitors (and locals!) researching places to dine, sleep, shop, wine taste, U-pick, and hold events. Have you been to Napa wine tasting lately? The more seasoned traveler seeks places like ours versus standing in line for high-priced tourist attractions. With all these features of South County minutes away from downtown we shouldn’t have any issue lifting Morgan Hill amongst the ranks of charming California communities to visit, and Visit Morgan Hill is on it.

Visit Morgan Hill was created in 2019 — just before COVID when we all took a big hit. But with the guidance of Executive Director Krista Rupp at the helm Morgan Hill is getting on that tourism map. We wish her and all our hotel partners the best of success as they climb out of the COVID doldrum, for their success is part of the greater community’s success.

Until next time, cheers to you all.

David Dindak is the MHDA President/co-owner Bubbles & Brew and a REMAX Realtor.