In Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where summer tourism is treated with the reverence usually reserved for monarchs or cheese, the local Tourism Commission convened in June to review its triumphs. Hotel occupancy, based on selectively self-reported data, was said to be rising — as it always is. Wine walks were praised as economic engines. Lemonade crawls became civic innovation. And a $300,000 grant to the YMCA was found to have been mostly unspent, but never mind. The Commission, undeterred by numbers, definitions, or logic, soldiered on — proving once again that in small-town America, there is no problem that cannot be solved with a festival, a grant, or a strong drink.
At the secret Lake Geneva Tourism Commission in June 2025 Deanna Goodwin from Visit Lake Geneva gave some insight of the statistical spin which the “marketers black art”.
First was the famous str report often given to the commission to show what a wonderful job Visit Lake Geneva was doing by always increasing hotel occupancy every year. The STR Report is subscription based, and the data is self-reporting by the hotels that are subscribing. Not all hotels participate in the data.
Visit Lake Geneva, which is given over $1M a year does not break down the data by municipality. The data is available, but Visit does not subscribe to the detailed data “because they are getting room tax from multiple municipalities “so give a cumulative number. The data also does not include other lodging facilities like vacation home rentals. These are the fastest growing segments in Lake Geneva because they are better value for money.
The other peak behind the curtain was the way different publications award “best of” designations. USA Today gets nominations from the editors of the best categories of a couple times a year and then anyone can go online to vote so Visit and probably other tourist destinations pushes them out on social media to get more people to vote. They pointed out that the top 5 towns voted “best of” all came from Indiana___realty Indiana!
Alexandra Binanti from the BID tooted her horn concerning the annual Wine walk. Which is just as it sounds, a bunch of tourists walking around downtown drinking wine. Hay this is Wisconsin, the binge drinking capital of America. And downtown Lake Geneva wants to be put on the map as “Boozers of America”.
Wine walk was said to result in a big increase for downtown businesses. They offer promotions in the packet sent out to visitors which increased business by 100 percent. The wine walk sold out at 550 but spending was down. A four-hour window for drinking was instituted and items spent with participating merchants ranged between 15 to 50 dollars. And then one notable comment by the participants was that store merchandise seemed to be significantly more expensive than years past. “So, again” Alexandra stated “we’re keeping an eye on that, just knowing what our future sales promotions can be as a business district, but what, what is the feedback of consumer spending, you know, we know what times we’re in.” Where have all the big spenders gone. Data from Bloomberg show that the rich people are responsible for half of all consumer spending. They aren’t shopping in LG baby.
In a move away from the booze, BID is having another lemonade crawl August 20,2025. “We are going to be having a nominal ticket price for parents being five dollars to guarantee their spot. And all of the 100% of those proceeds will be going to our mural program that is this summer, The kids will still be free to attend, but it gives us a way to track, you know, who’s coming into town and participating, and so we can plan on having enough lemonade for everyone. We’ve added another part to the event: a post-event picnic at Flatiron Park, which will be the final stop and feature several food trucks. There’s going to be local games from the library. This weeknight, you know, I’m just getting pre-back-to-school entertainment. From there, we have five trucks, signed up for this, and then we’ll have a little bit of live music again. Family friendly, kid-centric for entertainment, so the event goes from 3 P.M to 6 p.m. The park activities will be open from four until 8 P.M,”
The YMCA was back. Mike Coolidge sports operations director talked about the $300K The Tourism Commission gave them to renovate the fields at Veterans Park this spring. The Commission also gave the YMCA $350K in 2024 the same fields. He reported they had five tournaments of 140 baseball softball teams have attended in the last two weeks. We had a total of 75, 37, two weeks ago this past weekend that was just completed. With six more tournaments still to go this summer.
He came before the Commission to ask “if the money we have left if over could reallocate that to different operations at Veterans Park, “Alderperson Kathy Stoodley the city’s representative on the YMCA board gleefully reported at the June Committee of the Whole that the YMCA only spent $100K out of the $300K and only one weekend for the whole summer the Y did not have tournaments scheduled in Veterans Park The public park is for their use to make money and provide for tourists. What about the residents?
Commissioner Zakia Pirzada showing all the class of a hotelier, she wanted the extra money to be used for signage for advertising for local businesses. Just like in Burlington, Wisconsin.
After about a hour of this thrill fest the commission got around to the awarding of grants.
First up was ‘Jazz on the Lake” Featuring -Midwest Young Artists; Fred Gahl put on by the Lake Geneva Community Foundation.
“Lake Geneva Community Foundation is dedicated to bringing residents together to build community in order to enhance the quality of life in Lake Geneva. The offer service such as Grant making programs, Community leadership initiatives, and philanthropic partnerships. They believe in the power of philanthropy to drive positive change. You create a more vibrant and ethical Community for everyone in Lake Geneva, Midwest Young Artists, empowers young musicians through transformative music education near the Region’s largest youth music Ensemble program, and they offer Orchestra, chamber, Jazz, and choral music. They’re 70 children from 70 communities in Illinois.”
“Our event overview in Flat Iron Park on the lake to provide a beautiful evening for residents to join a community and enjoy top level music and picnic celebrations. Food Service will offer a food truck. Community State Bank is proposed to provide free ice cream served from a vintage food trailer. Lake Geneva Jaycees have been proposed to provide beverages to provide offerings from various groups in the community, Midwest Young Artists will provide 18 to 20 award-winning youth Jazz Ensemble to include saxophones, trombones, trumpets, bass, drummer, piano, and guitar. The event budget will include print, radio, internet, Direct Mail, and online offerings.”
“One thing I can assure you is that there’ll be no cheese. Uh, there’ll be no bacon, uh, and there’ll be no whiskey. But if people like a real nice quality evening in part with a bunch of friends, and try to introduce that to tourists, too, that to show that we do offer a higher grade other than bacon and whiskey and cheese.”
President Stephanie Klett from Visit Lake Geneva was noticeably unhappy with this grant, questioning the validity of Lake Geneva Community Foundation and that it was going to advertise with locals WLAK and Lake Geneva Regional News.
Fred went on to describe the Foundation. “Friends of the lake got together was about 150 people who live in the Lake Geneva area and decided to have an event to celebrate the fact of our commonality that everybody enjoys and appreciates the lake. Then, we raised about $50 to $100K for the police and fire department, and so, event at the Riveria and then we had a subsequent. event that we got involved and raised about 50 to a hundred thousand dollars for the children’s oncology camp on the lake and following that more and more people have come to the feeling that you really can’t complain about what’s going on in the world of Tourism in your community, unless you’re over tourism as a resident, unless you’re willing to do something about it and try and blend in and try and incur a balance. We obviously all enjoy the fact that in Lake Geneva.”
“The over tourism balance is a little out of whack”
“The over tourism balance is a little out of whack, so it’s over 100 families that band together and formed a non-profit of Lake Geneva Community Foundation, and the intent is to be able to promote local events also to give grants and do some. Philanthropic work in the area is already registered. It’s licensed, it’s 501.3c,”
Most members of the commission thought this was a great event except Zakia Pirzada because it was the same weekend as Country Thunder. Even though last month she approved a grant of an event held at the Kenosha Co fairgrounds Called Das Fest for the same dates.
Fred points out that this is the first year and we are totally committed to doing other major events. This group that’s coming in, they’re certainly nationally known due to a lot of touring in Europe and other places. So, it’s, a real honor to be able to get these musicians.
Commissioner Frame made a motion to give Fred the full $9800 he was asking for.
Then the good old girls started in. Alderperson Mary Jo Fesenmaier doesn’t like that it is using local marketing, since statues require attracting out-of-town guests, same as Lake Geneva Visit President Stephanie Klett, and hotelier Zakia Pirzada.
“What they don’t like is local marketing like WLKG radio, the local newspaper, The Regional News, so they excluded them from the grant. Brian stated that” the state stature says must be for promotion of transient guests. reasonably likely to generate overnight stays.”
Commission President Brian Waspi pointed out because the event would before the next Commission Meeting, he had no choice. But next time “you might want to massage your marketing budget before we get here to make it easier to approve.”
Next up was The Lake Geneva Women’s Association, but the city council was ready to meet in the room, so they ran out of time to make their presentation. Your correspondent heard them after the meeting commenting that the commission in the past always approved of local marketing.
If anyone out there is contemplating dipping their beak in the current $985,576 in equity the commission has as at the end if April. Here are some observations:
The commissioners are small town Wisconsin cheese heads. Any event that ends in FEST they relate to. Local life in LG revolves around eating, drinking, brats and big booties.
I’m happy to report that Fred’s Lake Geneva Community Foundation is bringing the Midwest Young Artists to Flat Iron Park on July 19h. Looking forward to some good music.
One last thing: who the hell is paying for that so called “music” in Flat Iron Park on Thursday nights? Thank God for noise cancelling headphones.
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