How Wisconsin Dells earned the score
Population 2,978 (US Census 2020)
Situation A small scenic resort town on the Wisconsin River, known for frog boat tours and a water-ski pyramid, that had a tourist trade but no truly unique niche.
Action Stacked a downtown of waterparks, attractions, and lodging into a single regional anchor after The Polynesian moved part of its parks indoors in 1994.
Result A combined 1.5 billion dollars a year to the community, a figure that has risen eight years in a row.
Let’s Meet Wisconsin Dells, WI
The Wisconsin Dells started out as a small resort town located in the scenic Wisconsin woods nestled along the river. First came the frog boat tours that peaked people’s interest into visiting the “Dells”. In the 1950s another attraction, the idealistic lake town pyramid of water skiers, kept the tourists coming through the summer and helped the hotels grow. Wisconsin Dells had long been a tourist city and even a creative city before the waterparks, but hadn’t really found a very unique niche.
The Beginning of Wisconsin Dells and Their Creative City Development
The Wisconsin Dells was your typical summer boom town. This is all until The Polynesian redid part of its building in 1994 and moved a small part of its water parks indoors. For the next few years, through the winter, it was packed. Word spread of the indoor water parks that families could come to in the dead of the Wisconsin winter.
Rethinking Things
This is when a good old fashioned rat race began between the other 19 local business owners. Each needed to build a portion of their water parks indoors in order to keep up with the Joneses, if you will. As each competed to have the best indoor water park they grew better and more elaborate, until today you have such water parks as the Kalahari Resort, which touts an impressive indoor water park made to look like a jungle in the middle of Wisconsin. The Kalahari Resort is actually one of the biggest resorts in the Wisconsin Dells. It opened in May 2000 with 756 guest room suites, condos, and 5 bedroom condos, making it the second largest resort in Wisconsin. It has four restaurants and 7 eateries as well as a theme park. The water park itself is roughly a hundred and twenty five thousand square feet. It had the first indoor uphill water coaster and first surfing simulator. That’s not nearly all though. Indoors they also have silver water slides, a lazy river, a wave pool, and an interactive play structure. (Interactive play structures, what even is that!?) They also have, for the summer, several water slides outside, another lazy river, and three more interactive play structures. This is just one of many hotels. The big five hotels are Mount Olympus Water and Theme Park, Wilderness Territory, Chula Vista Resort, Great Wolf Lodge, and the Atlantis Resort, all side by side competing to be the biggest and best water parks. This competition has set the Wisconsin Dells up a great way financially and entrepreneurially.
The Creative City Rat Race
In many ways this is the Vegas of the Midwest. Large magnificent hotels bring visitors from 3 plus hours around just for leisure. Last year almost $415 million alone was spent on lodging in the Wisconsin Dells. These visitors had to eat somewhere: another 309 million was spent on food and beverages. Might as well stop in the shop while you’re close, 212 million spent on retail shops. There was another hundred and forty-six million spent on recreation and 82 million spent on transportation. That’s a combined contribution of 1.5 billion dollars to the Wisconsin Dells community. Not only that, this number has increased for the last 8 years in a row.
The Rat Race Begins
Noah’s Ark, one of the premier hotels in town, draws upwards of 10,000 visitors in a single day. The Kalahari Resort is in the midst of a 35 million dollar room expansion to accommodate more guests. The point here is the city is in economic boom, and it’s all due to a funny little arms race between hotels. The town centers around water parks and capitalizes on the tourism and brings in 1.5 billion dollars for its residents. This demonstrates exactly what Creative City Developments is about: use the unique, novel, and fun to help drive tourists out of major cities into smaller communities that have really fun unique things going on. Just like the Wisconsin Dells becoming the waterpark capital of the world.
Las Vegas of the Midwest
Encourage your town to be more like the Wisconsin Dells. Even if you’re just starting out with frog boat tours or a pyramid of water skiers. Something unique will attract people and you can start from there.
Why Other Towns Should Follow Wisconsin Dells’s Lead
Wisconsin Dells ran the same play any town can run: pick one anchor, commit to it for decades, and protect the off-season programming. It stacked a downtown of waterparks, attractions, and lodging into a single regional anchor.