In Effort to Woo Regional Visitors, LG City Council Approves Billboard Buys

The La Grange City Council approved two tourism grant requests for billboard signs. The signs will be used to advertise the community as a tourism destination.

La Grange Chamber of Commerce requested $3,900 to lease one sign. La Grange Main Street requested $14,400 to lease two double-faced signs.

“It’s a new environment involving COVID and people driving, mostly day trips,” said City Manager Shawn Raborn at a City Council meeting on Monday, June 22.

Tourism experts say the public will likely curtail air travel in favor of road trips during the coronavirus pandemic, since many travelers worry about catching the virus in confined spaces like airplanes.

“With uncertainty and fear hanging over traveling, no one knows how quickly tourism and business travel will recover, whether we will still fly as much, and what the travel experience will look like once new health security measures are in place,” stated an article last week in “Foreign Police” magazine, which was titled “The Future of Travel After the Coronavirus Pandemic.”

The billboard signs aim to capitalize on travelers who might forgo longer trips requiring flights in favor of shorter road trips to closer destinations.

“We’ll do this as a pilot program and see how it goes this next year,” Raborn said. “If it goes well, we may come back to you with a full marketing campaign.”

Councilman Ken Taylor asked how the City can determine the return on investment for the sign leases. Raborn acknowledged the difficulty in tracking the return from billboard advertising. Main Street Manager Stacey Norris said staff at Casino Hall Visitors Center regularly ask visitors how they heard about La Grange. Those surveys could give the Council some indication of the billboards’ performance.

Norris explained the reason Main Street wants to lease both faces of the double-faced signs.

“We’re getting the top and bottom so we can control the message,” Norris said. “We don’t know what someone else would slap up there.”

Council approved the requests unanimously.

In other business at Monday’s meeting, Council voted to refinance the City’s 2011 Certificate of Obligation for water system improvements. The outstanding amount on the 20 year note was about $4.42 million with future interest rates ranging between 3 and 3.75%. Raborn said the City could save between $400,000 and $500,000 by refinancing the note through the issuance of refunding bonds. The company Specialized Public Finance will serve as the financial advisor.

Council voted unanimously to authorize the refinancing plan so long as it saves at least five percent of the outstanding debt. That threshold would cover the costs associated with refinancing.