Adventure Coast bureau hosts first Tourism Partners’ Exchange in Brooksville

Florida’s Adventure Coast Visitors Bureau brought tourism partners together at Broad Street Brewing in Brooksville, using its first Tourism Partners’ Exchange to push a bigger idea than a simple networking hour. The gathering landed inside National Travel and Tourism Week, which runs May 3-9, and it came as Hernando County businesses headed toward the summer travel season.

The bureau called the event its inaugural quarterly networking event and framed it as a direct response to local demand. “You asked, we listened,” the invitation said. The point was to pull hotels, restaurants, attractions and event operators into the same room so the county’s tourism economy could work more like a coordinated system and less like a series of separate promotions.

That coordination matters in Hernando County, where a visitor’s experience often depends on whether a trip to one attraction turns into dinner in Brooksville, an overnight stay and another stop the next day. The bureau says its mission is to identify, create, support and enhance activities that increase visitation and provide local economic impact. County budget documents say the Tourism Development Department markets Florida’s Adventure Coast, Brooksville-Weeki Wachee as a destination for visitation and film to drive positive economic impact.

The stakes are measurable. Hernando County’s 2023 tourism economic-impact report said visitor spending supported 4,223 jobs and generated $47 million in wages. It also put total business spending tied to tourism at $303.1 million, counting day trips, overnight trips, domestic out-of-state visitors, international visitors and Florida residents who traveled at least 50 miles. That is the economic backdrop behind the bureau’s effort to get more local businesses cross-promoting and filling gaps that can shorten visits or send spending elsewhere.

The exchange also fit into a broader local campaign to treat tourism as economic development. Brooksville Main Street and the Greater Hernando County Chamber of Commerce tied May 6 programming to National Travel and Tourism Week with a Brooksville Matters session featuring Tammy Heon, the bureau’s manager of tourism development, and a discussion titled “Tourism: The Heartbeat of Our Local Economy.” Together, the events pointed to a county-wide push to strengthen the visitor pipeline before summer starts and measure success not just in foot traffic, but in spending, jobs and repeat stays.