The Fairfield Convention and Visitors Bureau presented its fiscal year 2026 budget to the City Council on Monday, February 23rd, revealing both promising marketing initiatives and concerning capacity challenges facing the local tourism industry.
Tourism Trends and Marketing Efforts
CVB Director Terry Baker reported that Jefferson County continues to see small growth in visitor spending while neighboring counties like Henry and Des Moines have experienced dramatic drops. However, tourism is slowly declining nationally and across Iowa over the last 12 months due to economic factors.
“We continue to see a small amount of growth, which is good because some of the counties around us actually had dramatic drops in visitor spending,” Baker said.
The CVB is working with a marketing firm from Austin, Texas, to test messaging and optimize placement. The strategy focuses on Fairfield’s unique small-town character combined with quality food and cultural experiences—attributes that are trending as travelers seek alternatives to crowded cities.
Upcoming marketing placements include a feature in Travel Taste and Tour magazine in April and a Chicago Tribune insert plus Wall Street Journal digital placement in March, targeting Chicago-area travelers who represent a key demographic for Fairfield.
The CVB is also redesigning its website with a focus on generative engine optimization, ensuring that when AI systems search for information about Fairfield, they pull accurate data from the city’s official website.
Critical Lodging Shortage
Baker identified a critical challenge: limited overnight lodging capacity is forcing more visitors into day trips rather than extended stays.
“Our overnight stays where our day trips were—that is now flipped. So we’re seeing more people just coming for the day,” Baker explained.
The shortage becomes acute during events like the Jefferson County Fair, when hotels fill completely. Baker cited an example of a large tour group she had to send to Ottumwa because Fairfield hotels were booked during fair week.
“That’s hurting us. It’s definitely hurting us, and that’s why we know we’re not going to see that growth in hotel [revenue],” she said.
Business travelers are also affected, with some consultants driving from Des Moines to Fairfield for meetings and returning to Des Moines or Ottumwa for overnight stays.
Airbnbs have helped absorb some overflow, but the lack of traditional hotel capacity continues to limit tourism revenue growth.
ISU Housing Workshop: March 6th
In related community development news, Grow Fairfield’s Rachel Hillier announced that Fairfield has been selected as the pilot project for Iowa’s Rural Housing Initiative 2.0 after the city’s success with the first round.
Iowa State University College of Design students are conducting a comprehensive study of Fairfield’s aging housing stock and will host a community engagement workshop on March 6 from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Jefferson County Extension Office in the Cambridge Building at the fairgrounds.
Residents can attend at 2, 3, 4, or 5 p.m. and don’t need to stay for the entire session. The students have divided the city into six zones and will present interactive activities to gather community feedback.
City Council members are especially encouraged to attend since they know their wards and constituents well, according to Hillier.
The students will create a pattern book specifically for Fairfield showing homeowners and developers which rehabilitation projects are most beneficial. The work will be documented and used as an example for other Iowa communities.
“This is going to be a pilot project,” Hillier said. “Everything that we do as a community is going to be documented and used as an example for other surrounding communities.”
City Administrator Doug Reinert noted that Fairfield was selected because of its strong performance with Rural Housing 1.0.
“We did such a good job with rural housing 1.0 that we’ve been designated the very first grantee of this rural housing 2.0 initiative,” Reinert said. “We’re sort of maybe the cutting edge, the bleeding edge, guinea pig pilot project.”
The grant also includes funding for demolition and site planning, and will help establish policies and targeted incentives for aging housing improvements.
This represents one of three approaches Fairfield is taking to address housing needs:
- New construction at Sunrise Trail Subdivision
- Rental properties through the Kading development
- Rehabilitating older homes through this ISU project
The public is invited to participate in the March 6th workshop. For more information, contact the Jefferson County Extension Office.
Photo from Fairfield Convention and Visitors Bureau.
