By Anna Skinner
City of Westfield Hospitality Coordinator Rhonda Daly spoke to chamber of commerce members and other Westfield citizens about the importance of tourism and customer service during the monthly luncheon at the Palomino Ballroom. After a brief introduction and awarding some scholarships, Daly detailed the official ribbon cutting ceremony of Grand Park that took place June 20 through 22.
Even though they cut the ribbon then, the park has been open for a while. Daly says it has already attracted 385,000 visits.
Westfield’s goal is, through tourism operations like Grand Park, to have 92 cents of every dollar spent stay local. Amateur youth travel team sports is an $8.7 billion industry alone, and Grand Park plans on attracting some of that business.
“Tourism matters not only for economic development, but for the community. It brings community pride,” Daly said. “It (Grand Park) is putting us on the map in a big way. We had 48 teams play (recently). It’s really beneficial to our community, and Westfield has officially landed in the sports industry business.”
Westfield hopes to provide the Grand Park visitors with an experience similar to what Indianapolis provided for the Super Bowl. Westfield doesn’t only plan on building more restaurants and hotels to accomplish that, but they plan on educating the citizens as well with an online program called Super Service.
Daly said Super Service is a short online course that citizens can take to learn good customer service and promote the tourism attractions of Westfield and the importance of that tourism. Those who complete the online course will receive a Hamilton County Tourism Ambassador certificate. The online course is accessible at SuperServiceTraining.com/HamiltonCountyWestfield.
Jordan McBride of the Westfield Parks and Recreation Dept. also spoke at the luncheon about possibly connecting the Monon Trail to Grand Park by the time all the construction has finished. Overall, the final hopes for Grand Park are for all Westfield citizens to extend customer service and to create a feeling of acceptance in Grand Park’s guests.
