Photo credit: Robin May/The Advocate
For W. Pat Bordes II, there was little doubt five years ago that the new stretch of Ambassador Caffery Parkway between Broussard and Youngsville would be the perfect place for another location of Fezzo’s Seafood and Steakhouse.
The area was seeing explosive residential growth at the time, and there were few restaurants nearby to serve the bedroom communities. The Youngsville Sports Complex had recently opened, and he learned that plans were in the works to construct the Broussard Sports Complex at St. Julien Park.
“That really helped us make a decision to build in that area,” Bordes said. “And it has proven to be beneficial. The baseball complexes really bring us a lot of business.”
What Bordes is describing is the economic impact of sports tourism, one of the fastest growing sectors of the travel industry and one that communities across the country are trying to capitalize on.
It’s not just the Broussard location of Fezzo’s, which opened in 2018, that is reaping the benefit of sports tourism. The Crowley location of Fezzo’s, which opened in 1999, has recently seen a surge in business after a $5 million upgrade at the existing Crowley Recreation Department complex.
“We’ve noticed a tremendous influx of people coming to Crowley,” Bordes said. “Any time there’s an event at any of the sports complexes, we have baseball uniforms coming in. Sometimes they have reservations. Sometimes they take a chance.”
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