While visiting a restaurant, shopping center or attraction recently, you most likely noticed car windows painted and droves of softball players and their families visiting our region for the National Softball World Series.

More than 190 softball teams competed on fields in Crown Point, Highland, Hobart, Munster, LaPorte, Michigan City and Portage.

Those thousands of athletes and their families generated more than $1 million for the economy, including more than 2,000 room nights at local hotels, thousands of meals at restaurants and other recreational activities.

These are the most visual examples of tourism our region will see.

Travelers in our communities are often unrecognizable, but not during the NSA World Series. You may not realize that of each dollar they spend, 86 cents will stay local.

The tournaments also generated thousands of additional dollars to each community through rental fees, concessions and maintenance fees.

At the direction of the Lake County Council, the Regional Development Authority commissioned a feasibility study on the economic impact of a convention center to Lake County.

Recommendations for possible locations, funding sources and size of the project were all revealed.

Through extensive interviews and experience with past projects, demand would suggest an opportunity for Lake County to build a convention center with 75,000 square feet of sellable space with a 45,000-square-foot exhibition hall.

The project would be successful with a number of additional factors including, but not limited to, walkability, attached hotel property and accessibility.

A project of this magnitude would generate $400 million for the local economy through the next 20 years and nearly 900,000 hotel room nights.

If built, it would create more than 700 full-time, part-time and temporary construction jobs.

A convention center would also provide meeting space for local, state and national conventions, trade shows and indoor sporting events.

In turn, residents could enjoy diverse restaurant and entertainment options, job creation and additional tax savings because of the influx of visitor spending.

While these convention attendees may not be as visible as the NSA softball players, their money would still impact our local economy.

Speros A. Batistatos is the president/CEO of the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority.