KSHB 41 reporter Ryan Gamboa covers Miami County in Kansas and Cass County in Missouri. He also covers agricultural topics. Share your story idea with Ryan.
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On Tuesday, community and business leaders from Miami, Linn, Franklin, and Anderson counties heard a presentation from KC2026 about the economic incentives the World Cup has to offer.
"I think that there's opportunity," explained Jessica Mills, the Anderson County economic development director. "There is room to grow, room to make money, and room to welcome people into our community that would have never otherwise known about our community."
Approximately 60 people from the four counties gathered for two presentations. Much of the presentation outlined the plans in place to make the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Kansas City operate.
From transportation, airline travel, to lodging, residents had the opportunity to have questions answered.
"I love the idea of really us being able to show the world, the rural culture we have in this region," said Lindsey Douglas, chief operations officer for KC2026. "We don’t just have a city, we have a vibrant, energized rural culture that international visitors from our country are really interested in seeing."
Many of the questions rural business and community leaders had revolved around transportation. Douglas says that could be a major economic driver for rural communities.
"Most people drive. Most people who live here haven’t experienced much of the public transit network. So how can we both expose both residents and visitors to how public transportation can work in our region," she said. "We also know we need to partner. We won’t be able to move everybody from further outside of the metropolitan area down to these points of interest, to the matches, to the fan festival... Is there a shuttle service that a business can take on and make that a private business enterprise to move people from outside the metropolitan area into the metropolitan area? Then access the transportation area that we’re creating."
The conversations are being had.
FIFA and Kansas City have a contractual agreement that the region must be able to accommodate the estimated 650,000 visitors.
It can happen, but not without a two-and-a-half hour radius, utilizing lodging in surrounding communities.
Douglas says there is major interest in international and domestic visitors experiencing rural Kansas and Missouri.
"We have heard is that they [visitors] don’t just want that city experience, they really want to experience Americana," Douglas said. "I do think there is a lot of interest in experiencing the community in other ways as well."
Jessica Mills, who operates out of Garnett, Kansas, in Douglas County, remains hopeful World Cup travelers will venture outside the metro and into her community.
"My goal is to prepare ourselves," she said. "Tours. I mean, we have a lot of things that people from around the world have never experienced. We have a very large Amish community, a lot of camping, a lot of nature that is different and diverse from other places in the world."
Douglas says drawing crowds starts with marketing their area. However, the summer months typically are down for local visitors going on their own vacations.
"We’ll be able to capture, hopefully, and have the small businesses supported, shopped in, visited, when they might not have had as much business in the past," she said.
While much of Tuesday's conversation is still in the early planning stages, the World Cup is approaching one year away.
Douglas says she anticipates nearby Kansas City regional airports will see an uptick in traffic with private aircraft.
Additionally, marketing crop commodities like livestock could be a way to showcase that there is more to Kansas City than the metropolitan area.
"We're really building this trade mission in our backyard. It's our opportunity to show the industries, whether that’s manufacturing, agriculture, aviation," Douglas said. "We would be missing an opportunity if we don’t get the rest of the state outside of the Kansas City Metropolitan area to really feel the benefit and feel included as part of the World Cup."
The clock is ticking to get it all together for smaller communities to get it all together.
There is no clear sign of what the impact will be in rural America.
"We may not have any regional impact or any local impact. But I definitely think there is that possibility," Mills said. "I want to make sure that we position ourselves the best we possibly can."
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