The term "shopportunity" has crept into the lexicon of the Eagan Convention & Visitors Bureau.
The bureau is looking for a big increase in visitors — including out-of-town and international travelers — when the Paragon Outlet Mall opens next year in the Cedar Grove redevelopment area. The new mall is fueling much of the 5 percent increase in the bureau's 2014 budget, to almost $975,000.
More than $500,000 is earmarked for marketing the city as a destination for meetings, groups, sports and vacations. The bureau is expanding its marketing reach from six Midwestern states to 10 and the Winnipeg area. Armed with new, state-of-the-art display booths, the bureau will promote Eagan at 12 trade shows in 2014, up from eight this year.
The bureau also plans to revamp its website and develop new digital platforms to promote the city on mobile devices and tablets.
Much of the amped-up marketing will focus on the new mall, expected to have more than 100 upscale outlet stores when it opens next August.
"Never before in Eagan's hospitality history has an attraction of this magnitude been added to the landscape," the bureau said in a recent report to the City Council. The economic benefits are expected to spread beyond the mall to other area attractions, hotels and restaurants.
The new mall will arrive on the scene as travel nationwide continues to recover from the recession. The hotel industry in the Twin Cities has been making a comeback. Through the end of May, average occupancy at metro area hotels was 62 percent, up from 58 percent for the same period a year earlier, according to Tennessee-based Smith Travel Research.
Occupancy at Eagan's hotels also has been moving up and currently is about 70 percent, according to Brent Cory, president and CEO of the bureau. The potential benefit of the outlet mall to area hotels is a key reason developers have expressed an interest in building a new hotel — the first in Eagan since 2002 — in the Cedar Grove area.