COLLEGE STATION, Texas — This year will be the first time ever Experience Bryan-College Station will be hosting the BCS Volleyball Classic, a high school varsity girls volleyball tournament.
"So far we have twenty teams signed up, we're hoping for anywhere from 24 to 32 just to make equal brackets," said Experience Bryan-College Station Sports Manager Courtney Fegter.
This three-day tournament will be held in August and invites high schools from all across the state to participate. Experience Bryan-College Station hopes that this invitational coming up in August will boost traffic in the hotels and restaurants here.
"Our main goals and objective of the organization is to fill hotel rooms during need dates, so it's awesome to bring people into the community and awesome for the kids to see Texas A&M. And we work closely with the basketball programs; we do tours of the basketball facility during the tournament, so we're hoping to do that for volleyball as well," said Fegter
Experience BCS collaborates with Parks and Recreation for various sports events throughout the year.
"We partner with them to go to conferences and build those relationships with event organizers, and try to bring them to Bryan-College Station. Having a different variety of sports throughout the year is very important for us, especially on the facility side for our end. So, having those different events, spending money on our community while they're there, also going to different restaurants, retails, having them experience the full areas, having them have something to do and having a great time," said College Station Parks and Rec Tourism Events Supervisor Katie Kwiatkowski.
Last year the sports events brought nearly 70,000 attendees just in sports tourism alone.
"I fell like the hospitality is really going strong in Bryan-College Station, and so having that friendliness, that welcoming environment whenever they come here, that's really big," said Kwiatkowski.
Both organizations say sports tourism is a very important help to other hotels and tourism, especially during the winter and summer seasons.
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