Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Yes, marketing Fargo-Moorhead as a tourist destination has its challenges.
“If you asked most people what Fargo is famous for, they’d probably tell you ‘wood chipper,’” says Charley Johnson, “and they’d throw in a thick Scandinavian accent for good
measure.”
But as a growing parade of visitors discovers the area, those rather dull expectations have faded into a far more appealing picture of what the area offers its guests. Thanks in large part to the Fargo-Moorhead Convention and Visitors Bureau, going home with amusing memories of a desirable destination that offers far more than they might expect.
And what are they leaving behind? Their dollars. Tourism takes many forms, points out FMCVB director Charley Johnson. Beyond tourists trekking to visit the four-state region that calls itself The Great American West, tens of thousands of others fill Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo’s 63 hotels and motels, as well as Airbnb properties. Some are attending state and regional conventions here.
Others come to compete or cheer on state, regional and national sporting events.
All told, they bring jaw-dropping dollars into the local economy. In 2023, Johnson reports, travelers’ spending of all kinds contributed $1 billion to the economy in Cass County, and 2024 is coming close to matching that pace.
The industry’s statewide impact is even greater. “There’s some quibbling over whether oil or agriculture ranks number one in North Dakota,” Charley notes, “ but there’s no question at all about the third biggest sector of our economy.”
Johnson has spent the last 12 years marketing the pleasures of visiting Fargo-Moorhead domestically and overseas. His most lasting achievement, though, may lie in promoting the value of tourism right here at home. That not only includes the FMCVB’s grant support of developing facilities to expand the possibilities of hosting more and larger conventions and sporting events, but its current push to double Fargo’s lodging tax in support of a potential convention center.
It’s the second time around for that proposal. In 2023, Fargoans voted down a two-pronged mea-sure that would have added a quarter-cent sales tax to renovate and expand the FargoDome, as well as double the city’s lodging tax from 3 to 6%. Though it garnered 52% of the vote, the measure failed; up-ping the city’s sales tax required 60%.
This year, Johnson says, the visitors bureau’s proposal is focused only on the lodging tax. The Nov. 5 ballot will carry three separate measures: One to double the lodging tax (paid only by hotel guests) to 6%; a second to invoke the quarter-cent general sales tax for remodeling and capital improvements to the FargoDome; and a third that would add an-other quarter cent exclusively to fund fire and police operations.
He notes that the measure increasing the lodging tax has a better chance at approval this time around, since in its current form, it requires only a 50% majority of votes cast. “It’s a tax paid entirely by visitors to our city,” he emphasizes. “They’ll help us develop even more attractions to bring even more visitors. It’s a win-win.”
The Convention and Visitors Bureau has been funded by lodging taxes since its beginning days 45 years ago. It receives tax funds collected in all three cities, a total of $3.423 million in 2023. Of that amount, about one-third funds operations of the program itself; $100,000 to $130,000 is used for bid fees and event assistance for the conventions and tournaments it helps bring to town.
A large share of that annual revenue, however, goes to helping area organizations develop their programs and facilities. “Our destination development grants give us a way to support up to 25% of projects that bring people to town,” Johnson ex-plains. Over the past 12 years of Charley’s tenure, that’s amounted to nearly $6 million paid, plus an-other half-million pledged for projects not yet under-way. Among the high-profile recipients are the Fargo Sports Center; Matson Field, Moorhead’s baseball stadium; the Cullen Hockey Center; Concordia College’s Jake Christiansen Stadium; the second sheet of ice at Scheels Arena; West Fargo’s Hulbert Aquatic Center; the Fargo Air Museum; the Red River Zoo’s “Pride of the Prairie” bison exhibit; the FM Rotary Foundation’s Natural Play Hill; and many others.
If the lodging tax measure passes in November, Johnson looks forward to proposals for a new, much bigger convention center so that Fargo-Moorhead can finally compete for larger conventions. He en-visions a public-private partnership to build spacious meeting facilities. The dream includes, he says, a building of 80,000 to 100,000 square feet. Among its amenities would be a big room of 50,000 square feet or so, divisible into smaller areas; 10 to 12 smaller break-out rooms; ample storage, a kitchen and an adequate of pre-function area. “It doesn’t have to be at the Dome,” he adds. “The city would call for proposals involving at least a hotel partner.”
Why is a convention center critical to expanding Fargo-Moorhead’s attractiveness? “The Dome is 33 years old and needs an update – more bathrooms, more ADA seating, more space for con-cessions, a bigger lobby,” he observes. “And it’s incredibly busy.” He recalls an experience a few years ago when he inquired about availability two years before the fact: “They had seven open dates all year – seven!”
The area’s largest private facility is the 15,000-sq.-ft Crystal Ballroom at the Delta by Marriott, followed by 11,000 square feet at the Holiday Inn. “We can’t compete with Bismarck, Grand Forks, Sioux Falls, Duluth, St. Cloud, Rochester, Rapid City ….” Johnson points out. “I have a whole list of conferences and conventions that we could have had for sure or might have had, but we just didn’t have the size they required.”
He adds, “We could also use a few more hotel rooms.” That’s on top of the 5,639 now operating in Fargo, with 4,708; West Fargo, with 600; and Moor-head, with 325. Demand has recovered from its COVID-era slump, he adds when room revenue dropped to just over half of the $104 million recorded in 2019. It began picking up in 2021, when it slowly recovered to $100 million. By 2023, hotel rooms topped $150 million, with overall occupancy at a healthy 64.7% and an August high of a remarkable 79.8%.
While tournaments like August’s USA Wrestling boost the economy in jaw-dropping chunks – an estimated $20 million – individual tourism continues to draw families and group travelers to discover what the community has to offer. The CVB’s headquarters on Interstate 94 northeast of the 45th Street exit welcomes hundreds every weeks. They stop in to collect information on Fargo and the region around it, collecting armfuls of tourist guides for everything from Bonanzaville USA to the Black Hills and the rest of the Dako-tas, Wyoming and Idaho, the four states currently working together as the Great American West.
Too, they take a closer look at the wood chipper made famous by the 1996 movie “Fargo” and the more recent five-season FX TV series. The original model used in the film is parked in the CVB’s lobby.
But that’s not all they come for.
“About 10 years ago, Donna Hammer, a member of our staff, remarked on how many people were telling her that North Dakota was the last state on their bucket lists,” Johnson remembers. “They’d al-ready visited the other 49.”
In the grand tradition of turning lemons into lemonade, an idea was born. Hammer and the staff created the Best for Last Club – an honor reserved for those who wrap up their trips throughout the USA right here. Today a large plaque in the center provides a perfect spot to shoot a snapshot documenting their ultimate destination. The CVB also presents them with T-shirts commemorating their achievement.
Since its birth in 2014, the Best for Last Club has awarded more the 6,400 of the souvenir shirts.
“When people ask me where I’m from, ‘Fargo’ is usually the first thing that comes up,” the CEO admits. “Even now, that’s the big one. But without the movie, what else would we talk about? The weather, that’s
what — probably not the best thing to be bringing up.
“‘Fargo’ starts the conversation. We have plenty to take it from there.”
But his favorite comment is probably what the Great American West collaborative’s Italian marketing rep, Olga Mazzoni, had to say when she got home. “After her first visit, she started telling all her friends, ‘Fargo is sexy,’” he laughs. “If an Italian says we’re ‘sexy,’ we’ve probably got it made.”