Newport News, Virginia, USA

City leaders in Newport News, Virgina, tried something new when planning their 2026 budget. Instead of starting with the previous year’s numbers and adjusting from there, they went out and asked more than 1,000 residents about their priorities. 

The survey results were revealing. A picture emerged of how residents feel about the city’s 27 services and programs. Residents selected which they thought were the most important and which they were most satisfied with. Local leaders cross-referenced these lists to identify a handful of services residents believe to be both critical and underperforming, and committed more resources toward improving them.

At the same time, city leaders ramped up their use of performance data to track the impact of these investments. For the first time, all of this data is also woven into a five-year strategic plan. For Newport News, a city of 185,000 near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, this was an exciting new way of doing business. 

“It’s several moving pieces,” says City Manager Alan Archer. “It’s collecting the data. It’s incorporating the data into the annual operating budget process. It’s providing the data to the council members for their verification that we’re on the right track and making progress. And it’s building these processes with the voice of our community.”

A new effort around boosting tourism is one example of the new approach in action. In the resident survey, the need to support local businesses was seen as a top priority of residents and also an area in need of improvement. City leaders saw opportunities in attracting new visitors to the city’s museums, parks, restaurants, hotels and special events. 

Tourism managers started by getting better data on current visitors. Using anonymized cell-phone location data, they got a detailed portrait of key visitor demographic profiles, including what sorts of activities they’re coming to Newport News for and how long they stay. They’ve used this data to pursue state grants, enabling them to create highly targeted marketing campaigns promoting the city as a destination for history buffs, foodies, marathoners, wedding planners and more.

For example, a campaign called “Soul of the City” marketed Newport News as an affordable getaway for urban explorers. Following data that showed Baltimore as a fruitful target market, they geo-targeted advertisements and social media posts playing up cultural and culinary experiences and discounts, and promoted Amtrak as a stress-free way to arrive at the city’s new train station.  During the campaign, “Soul of the City” became the most-viewed page on the City’s website, hotel occupancy contributed $51,214 in room revenue, and Amtrak ridership from Baltimore increased by 18,500.

“Without having that data, we wouldn’t be able to get these grants,” says Tourism manager Desiree McDaniel, noting that other departments have also begun leveraging AI for pedestrian counts and other purposes. “And by using this targeted data, we’re able to connect with more audiences in markets like Baltimore, to have them come down, see who we are and what we’re all about.”