Here’s why an estimate was off by $500,000
Bear with me on another blog post about the baseball proposal.
The Yakima Herald-Republic reported that if the Yakima Bears left town, the city would lose $700,000 a year. That was a mistake that The Columbian repeated, then corrected.
This email from Kim Bennett, president of the Vancouver USA Regional Tourism Office, to Kelly Sills, the county’s economic development manager, explains how the mistake was made.
—–Original Message—-
From: Kim Bennett [mailto:kbennett@visitvancouverusa.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 31,2011 3:54 PM
To: Sills, Kelly
Subject: Answers – Comparative Hotel Revenue
Kelly,
I spoke with Rich Austin, Director of Sports at the Yakima Convention & Visitors Bureau. He gave the $700,000 figure to the Yakima Herald, and acknowledge now that it was incorrect. His team was pulling convention multipliers, rather than sporting event multipliers, and were using the wrong room count when they arrived at the $700,000 hotel revenue figure.
He said they will be contacting the Yakima Herald to correct the
information.
The accurate number according to the Yakima CVB is just under $200,000 in tourism impact: 38 home games a season brings in visiting teams that require hotel accommodations. The home team/Bears stay with host families and do not use hotel rooms.
39 room nights on average per game (1,652 per season) for visiting 13 players and officials, at $121.00/per night sporting event multiplier in Yakima, equals $200,000.
The sporting event multiplier encompasses hotel room, meals, gas and other misc purchases.
Vancouver’s multiplier for “overnight attendees” at Festivals, Events & Sports is $126.00/per night, slightly higher than Yakima’s.
Vancouver’s “day attendee” multiplier (those who live outside Clark County and travel in for an event and then travel home the same day) for Festivals, Events and Sports is $32 a day.
I was told by both the General Manager and owners of the Yakima Bears that overnight rooms would be somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 (lower than reported by Yakima CVB—that may be because the team may contract for a slightly larger number of rooms than is actually utilized and paid for). So if we use the high end number that the owners gave us (1,500 overnight guests per season), Vancouver’s tourism impact would be $189,000 annually.
Let me know if I can provide additional information.
Kimberly Bennett
President & CEO
Vancouver USA Regional Tourism Office
101 East 8th Street, Suite 240
Vancouver, WA 98660
Direct: 360-750-1553 Ext 12
Fax: 360-750-1933
kbennett@VisitVancouverUSA.com
www.VisitVancouverUSA.com
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