With the Firefly Music Festival in Dover this week, Kent County Tourism anticipates a big economic impact.
Firefly gets underway Thursday and runs through Sunday, and the event is expected to bring many out of town and state visitors to the region all weekend.
And those visitors are expected to generate a positive economic impact for local restaurants and other businesses near the Woodlands of Dover.
One group of businesses doing well are hotels according to Pete Bradley, president of the Kent County Tourism Corporation.
"I do know just from a hotel survey, and we've helped AEG to secure rooms as an intermediary for their vendors and support organizations, as far as I can tell, the county hotel rooms that week are sold out,” said Bradley. “So it's been a phenomenal positive effect for our hoteliers in the region. So that's one of the strong indicators."
Bradley says the hope is the event brings people back in the future.
"It exposes our region to a lot of folks to maybe future trips. A lot of them their prime mission is to go to the festival and the camp or whatnot, but the exposure to the region I think is a great benefit. It is a strong economic driver, you talk to restaurants and hoteliers, it's a big benefit," said Bradley.
Bradley notes the annual event in Dover can be looked at as the “second race” weekend in Dover. Dover Motor Speedway now only holds one NASCAR race a year.
He also commends Dover Motor Speedway and AEG – the company that organizes Firefly – for putting together the long-standing annual event.
