New Castle County hopes to help small businesses take advantage of PGA’s first ever tour stop in Delaware this month.
The BMW Championship, part of the PGA’s FedExCup playoffs, is at Wilmington Country Club this year.
The PGA’s first ever visit to Delaware is expected to draw thousands of fans between August 16th and 21st, and New Castle County is launching the “Small Business Open” to help promote local businesses while they’re here.
Charuni Patibanda is the New Castle County Economic Development Director. She says it’s a great opportunity for those small businesses to make up for some of their COVID-related losses.
“We wanted to give an opportunity with so many new guests coming, to make sure that they could frequent as many local businesses as possible, whether or not the local business happened to be located near where all the golf action was,” said Patibanda.
The Small Business Discount Program & Digital Map allows businesses located near the country club to be on a map provided to tournament guests, and offer discounts to guests who present a tournament ticket at their establishment. The map will be promoted via QR code, and businesses will be provided a printable logo and social media logo to indicate that they will offer some kind of discount.
The Small Business Night Market is for businesses who are located further from the tournament, or who do not have a storefront. They can set up a booth in a market space that will be located behind Frawley Stadium at the Riverfront August 19th and 20th from 7pm to 10pm.
Patibanda says having the world’s top golfers and fans in town offers a great opportunity for businesses- in many ways.
“I think there’s a lot of brand loyalty and potential future visitorship we could get from people coming here for the first time to witness something so specific as a golf tournament, and they may want to come back here for a weekend getaway,” she said.
Businesses can register for either program at www.newcastlede.gov.
