The last LaGrange City Council meeting centered around talk on tourism, namely a discussion on how the LaGrange-Troup County Chamber of Commerce uses its tourism budget to bring in visitors to the area.

According to the Chamber President Page Estes, the chamber received $764,850 from the hotel/motel tax in fiscal year 2018 and is projected to bring in over $200,000 more next year. That’s what happens when the city adds a brand-new hotel downtown and a water park resort.

According to numbers from the meeting, 3.5 million people visit Troup County per year and 2.5 million of those are because of West Point Lake. Those numbers are likely to climb next year, since Great Wolf Lodge is expected to bring in around 400,000 visitors a year. The addition of Sweetland Amphitheatre and its growing list of concerts also can’t hurt that number.

There have also been numerous discussions about West Point Lake recently, a positive for the future of the county’s tourism driver.

As fascinating as the numbers were this year, it’ll be really interesting next year to see how all of the hotel tax numbers align after all the growth.