Daily Freeman-Journal photo by Kolleen Taylor: Tourism Insider visitors enter The Elks in downtown Webster City during a Travel Iowa event hosted last week by the Webster City Area Chamber of Commerce and Webster City.

A yellow bus stopped in front of the Webster Theater last week, but this was no school field trip.

Instead, the bus was packed with visitors attending the Iowa Tourism Insider, a most-of-the-day event that was hosted by Webster City. The passengers were about to tour the town.

More than 75 tourism and business professionals attended.

Stephanie Neppl, community liaison for Travel Iowa which coordinated the day, opened the meeting and introduced Ariel Bertran, community development director for the City of Webster City. She welcomed the guests who came from dozens of Iowa communities.

“It’s one of the best turnouts,” Neppl said later.

The goal of the day was to showcase, from a tourism perspective, what has been accomplished in Webster City.

Three Webster City nonprofit organizations were represented on a panel to talk with the visitors about the tasks of purchasing and renovating buildings in Webster City. The panel was composed of Tyler Abens, of HERO — Help Entertain and Restore Organization, the organization that has twice saved the Webster Theater; Darcy Swon of LIFT WC — Local Initiative for Transformation Webster City, which has tackled the full restoration of The Elks and the salvaging of at least one other historic building in downtown; and Anne Blankenship, of the Webster City Community Theatre, which purchased and reconfigured a former church to create a Performance Center. They highlighted the work needed, the fundraising and the results of their work handling their individual projects.

“It was very good to hear from the three organizations, HERO, LIFT and WCCT,” Blankenship said later. “We all addressed our fundraising needs a little differently.”

But there was also a common thread: community support for each of the projects.

Abens and Swon emphasized the sheer volume of local fundraising that helped both the Webster Theater and The Elks, but they said both organizations also were able to receive grants, including local Hotel/Motel Tax grants.

Webster City Community Theatre’s experience was the opposite, according to Blankenship. A very small portion of its fundraising was through grants; the majority came from major individual donors, as well as continued community support.

All three organizations are volunteer-driven, though the Webster Theater pays a manager and hourly employees to handle day-to-day operations. The majority of them are high school students, Abens said.

Travel Iowa hosts the Tourism Insider event in several communities each year. To be a host, the community has to submit an application; a community’s achievements are a vital part of the application process.

Robin Streigle, community events coordinator for the Webster City Area Chamber of Commerce, which coordinated with Travel Iowa to organize last week’s visit, listened to some of the comments from those who attended.

“They really were impressed with the location where it was hosted, being at the movie theatre,” she said. “It was a nice location to represent what can happen when groups and community come together.”

Does tourism really impact a community? Here’s how it impacts the state:

— $6.9 billion in direct visitor spending in Iowa, according to 2022 statistics. That number increased to about 5% to $7.3 billion in 2023. That equates to about $20 million spent every day by visitors in Iowa, according to the 2023 Iowa Economic Impact Report.

— $10.4 billion in total economic impact (2022 statistics);

— 68,000 people are employed in tourism in Iowa (2022 statistics);

— $1.1 billion in state and local taxes are collected in relation to tourism dollars spent (2022 statistics).

The state Office of Tourism continues to monitor the changes in the tourism industry.

After lunch at the Webster City Links Golf Course, the afternoon tours featured an Art Walk and The Elks.

At the end of the day, participants had a chance to experience the final Market Night in downtown Webster City.

The final Tourism Insider meeting coordinated by Travel Iowa will be held in Dubuque in November.