If the organizers behind bringing the Republican National Convention to Tampa last August said today the event brought in over $214 million in direct expenditures to the Tampa Bay Area, exceeding the estimated $150-175 million totals projected last summerAt a news conference at Jackson’s Bistro on Harbour Island, Ken Jones, the CEO of the Host Committee for the convention, said the intent of organizers was threefold: To put Tampa on the world stage, “unlike it had ever been on the world stage before”; to show that Tampa is a viable host of other big events; and last but certainly not least, to infuse hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy.
The economic report was produced by University of Tampa Economics professor Brian T. Kench, and was performed by using what is called the IMPLAN economic model, which looks at incremental impacts as economic activity. His study says that the total economic impact of the 2012 RNC came out to $404.3 million.
Jones called the study “intellectually honest,” saying it took into account what is known as “negative substitution effects”, which means that a portion of the spending at the convention is by locals who would have spent that money in the city anyway.
But while the positive economic numbers from last summer was the objective of the press conference, not mentioned in the initial remarks by local officials was the fact that Tampa's reputation wasn't exactly enhanced that much by the proceedings, as the first day of the convention was canceled because of inclement weather, with the rest of the week featuring typically outlandishly hot and humid days, one of the most often discussed topics by visitors who attended.
Excessive security at the Tampa Bay Times Forum was also derided, with veteran broadcast journalist Tom Brokaw saying that it was the most severe security he had ever observed in his near 50-year career. Tampa received $50 million from the federal government for security, the same amount given to New York City in 2004, just three years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Yet Mayor Bob Buckhorn said the city needed every penny of it, comparing the protests in Tampa that resulted in just two arrests, vs. what happened four years earlier in St. Paul, where 800 hundred people were arrested for protesting at that convention. "I can live with the criticism that we overdeployed, because I couldn't sleep at night had I not done what we did, and the alternative had occurred. Because I can tell you, had the alternative occurred, and had there been mayhem and chaos, that would have damaged our economic development efforts for decades."
Asked about the media reaction, including from critics like comedian Jon Stewart, Buckhorn was unrepentant. "We weren't an armed camp, we were a safe city. Jon Stewart talks about great flying cockroaches that eat human beings, so put it in perspective."
CL also reported last month that marketing data collected by Visit Tampa Bay shows that the convention didn't exactly change Americans minds about Tampa. A survey of 1,000 leisure travelers from across the country placed Tampa dead last in “authenticity” among nine American cities considered competitors for the same tourists.
Rick Homans. President and Chief Executive Officer of the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation, name checked a number of corporations now doing Tampa since the RNC took place (such as Copa airlines, Bristol Myers Squibb and the Indian International Film Awards). When asked if he could attribute any of those successes directly to the RNC, Homans said that when his team is making economic pitches to corporations, the RNC always comes up.
"Did somebody say 'I saw you had the convention, I want to move my business?," he asked. "Economic development doesn't work that way," adding that it's a long process that has to do with positioning perceptions, which the convention helped.
Not every local business reaped the benefits from the convention of course. In fact, most of the local eateries in downtown Tampa complained vociferously that they missed out big-time. "We tried to tamp down expectations going into it," Buckhorn said of the hype surrounding the convention. "We knew some folks would make that decision not to come downtown...there is nothing that we could have done to change that."
Sitting in the front row watching but not speaking was the man perhaps most single handedly involved in getting the Republican National Committee to select Tampa for the 2012 convention (after blowing off similar efforts in 2004 and 2008), Al Austin.
The Tampa Bay Host Committee spent over $52 million on the convention, and says there is $3 million left over that they will ultimately distribute to local nonprofits, once it receives back the final audit by the Federal Elections Commission.
Last week the Republican National Committee announced that Phoenix, Salt Lake City, New Orleans, Kansas City and Las Vegas were among the cities in the mix to bid for the 2016 RNC. Ken Jones said he hasn't heard any RNC officials calling for a return to Tampa.