I doubt if many people vacation in Webster, but the population of nearby Houston (less than 20 miles away) is 2.3 million. Its a great location for a staycation.
IMO, I wouldn't classify any of those as big vacation spots. At least not Sandusky and Mason. Sure, they are close to large amusement parks. They tend to attract regional or day travelers more so than other places I would consider vacation big vacation spots like Orlando, Myrtle Beach or Hawaii. It seems they may locate them in areas where there are some other attractions, but they don't seem to want to compete against the big destinations.
Wisconsin Dells has about five million visitors a year. Close to two billion a year in direct and indirect spending.
No, they are not fly to destination spots, but they position themselves where families travel to for shorter stays. Cedar Points attracts more than 4 million visitors a year and it’s only open 6 months out of the year. Many people stay at Cedar Point for 2 or 3 nights and then hop over to GWL or the other indoor water park Kalahari (superior to GWL) for a night or two. Same with Kings Island and Dayton. The four places I have listed are all places where families travel to. Sandusky is not a large population center and Cedar Point is the main business that supports it. I can’t say to the other locations, but these four are all destination places for the Midwest.
I've been there and for the life of me can't figure out the draw of the place. How on earth do 5 million people want to show up there every year?
Shoot, I over estimated the Dells. With those numbers, Sandusky area seems like a bigger draw.
I can agree for the most part, except for Dayton. I lived in the Dayton area for 20 years. It really isn't a vacation destination. Not even a regional one. As for Kings Island, it is a local draw amusement park. Sure some people may come from out of town, but 90-95% are just going to be people who live in the Cincinnati/Dayton area. People are much more likely to drive from a greater distance to go to Cedar Point than they are to go to Kings Island.
Sounds like Branson, Gatlinburg, Niagara Falls and even perhaps Myrtle Beach.
It has 2900 residents so it’s a pretty good draw and 2600 in neighboring tiwn
Devils lake
Yeah, Kings Island most definitely is not the draw that Cedar Point is. There really aren’t any big draws like HHI, MB or Orlando in the Midwest, but it has many smaller draws, at least Michigan does. The weather just isn’t good enough year round for true big time draw. Spring just stinks here. It’s muddy, rainy and still pretty cold. With the exception of the couple of peak color weeks, fall is similar. We were in 3rd spring earlier in the week (almost 60) and it snowed last night. 4th spring starts next week.
It all depends on what you want to do. Being from California, there’s a lot of overlap in things to do. That being said, most people outside of the Midwest really don’t understand how big the Great Lakes are. I have taken a fair amount of people to the shores and they fully expect to see across the lake to the other side. Not happening.
It seems to always be how these cash based exchange options work. GWL doesn't care about HGVC points. Those have zero value to them. So when an owner wants to go to GWL, HGV needs to go and pay GWL actual cash for the booking. They need to then try to monetize the points from the owner by renting out inventory on Hilton.com or elsewhere. That carries risk. They may not be able to get anything or they may rent half the value of the points. HGV takes on all the risk so they build in very large margins. Thus why all things like GWL, cruises, tours, theme park tickets or shows always have a poor value when using points.
The only thing I can think of it is good for the salespeople selling HGVC. They say look at all of the states you can visit. They don't tell you half of those states are Great Wolf Lodge waterparks with ridiculous point charts.
By contrast Mt Olympus in Wisconsin Dells owns about 35 motels, has specials during the year selling those rooms for $49, the rooms come with four wristbands and are good on check in day and check out day. They closed all,pools at the motel so those that book odyssey Bluegreen in dells go to a water and theme park that is jammed with people who paid virtually nothing for their room but pay a lot of points.