Discover Odessa presented its quarterly report for July through September, outlining event counts, estimated attendees, hotel-night impacts and new visitor data that staff say will guide marketing and recruitment strategies.

The presentation emphasized sports as the leading driver for the quarter, noting the West Texas All Star Tournament, multiple boxing events, golf tournaments and the Bands of America event that brought 15 schools for a weekend. The report listed 54 hotel properties with 4,724 rooms in market and broke the economic-impact totals down by meetings, special events and sports.

Staff said they are working with a third-party data platform (Sartico) to produce a visitor “snapshot.” The platform classifies devices observed inside a 50-mile radius as visitors; Discover Odessa reported about 35% of observed devices in the city were classified as visitors during the quarter and said Dallas–Fort Worth supplied the largest number of visitors while Lubbock visitors had the highest per-person spending.

The presentation included digital-marketing metrics: average web session duration (about 31 seconds, below a cited national average of 54 seconds), device mix (roughly 60% desktop visits), and the top user age bracket (25–34). Staff said newsletter subscribers and social-media followers are increasing and that advertising placements (including a travel-host magazine back cover) continue.

Council members asked for follow-up on the Special Olympics event; staff said initial coordinator feedback was very positive and that Discover Odessa is coordinating with Visit Midland to reconcile hotel-night totals and will report results after a post-event after-action meeting.

The department also summarized its sports-event recruitment program and said it had awarded its available funds for the current cycle and is working to secure next-year funding. No formal council action was taken during the presentation; staff asked whether there were further questions and offered to provide additional reports when they are available.

Discover Odessa staff recommended continuing targeted outreach to meeting planners, venues and hotels and using visitor-profile data to refine marketing campaigns.

Council comment: mayor and council members thanked staff for the report and asked for future breakdowns of hotel-night counts when available.