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City
looking ahead to a gay old time
Tourism bonanza predicted. While last Gay Games
were a financial bust, hopes run high for major
spinoffs here
SOURCE: The Montréal Gazette
ANDY RIGA
The Gazette
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Grégoire Thibault,
whose Gay Village empire already includes a nightclub,
a restaurant and a pub, is even busier than usual.
With hammer in hand,
a dusty Thibault, whose booming businesses all
carry the Le Parking moniker and span a block
of Amherst St., is working overtime on a project
to double his pub's floor space and add a second
terrace by month's end.
At the same time,
after buying three buildings last year, he's designing
a new hotel - with 23 rooms and three suites -
to go in above the restaurant and pub.
It is to open in
early 2006, in time to cash in on what is being
touted as the biggest tourist event to hit Montreal
in years: Rendez-Vous Montreal 2006, a gay-and-lesbian
athletic competition and cultural event.
"You don't invest
$1 million on a hotel for one event - it's only
one week or so - but I'm rushing to get the hotel
ready on time," Thibault said. "I'm sure we'll
be full." The bigger goal, however, is to put
his fiefdom on the map for the expected future
tourists the event will attract.
"I want all the new
people who'll come to Montreal for Rendez-Vous
to see my businesses and say, 'Next summer, I'm
coming back to go to those bars, that restaurant,
that hotel.' "
- - -
The eight-day event,
July 29 to Aug. 5, 2006, is to feature 32 sports
- from aerobics to wrestling - and a cultural
program of choirs and dance. It will be preceded
by a two-day conference on gay rights. Organizers
expect 16,000 entrants and 250,000 spectators.
A footnote helps
explain the startling $171.8-million figure bandied
about by organizers of Rendez-Vous as the estimated
economic spin-offs expected from the event. "Our
sources tell us that gay people spend more than
regular tourists," says the footnote, on the Tourism
Montreal document that shows how the agency calculated
the figure.
That's why when the
agency did this particular projection, it boosted
by 50 per cent the amount it usually allots per
expected visitor when it crunches numbers to estimate
how much major events will generate in spending
on hotels, restaurants and taxes.
Gay Village businesspeople
say U.S. tourists think nothing of spending $3,000
U.S. apiece during the city's annual Divers/Cité
festival, an event that brings in an estimated
$40 million.
Still, the $171.8-million
figure raises eyebrows and deserves deciphering,
especially since organizers have government funding
- and since such events, including one in Australia
in 2002, have been financial disasters in the
past.
In addition, the
calculations were done before the recent announcement
a similar event - the Gay Games - will take place
around the same time in Chicago, smack in the
middle of Rendez-Vous's key target market: the
United States. Montreal was initially given the
nod to hold the 2006 Gay Games, but a dispute
with the Federation of Gay Games caused a split.
- - -
The $171.8-million
figure is more than the estimated spin-offs of
the jazz festival, one of the city's biggest events.
And it's about half of what every convention combined
brought to Montreal last year.
That can be explained
by the fact gay travellers are much freer spenders,
said Tourism Montreal spokesperson Pierre Bellerose:
"All the research shows it."
Gay and lesbian travelers
tend to have more disposable income (in part because
most don't have children) and they travel more,
farther and for longer periods, studies show.
And at 10 days, Rendez-Vous
will be longer than most other annual Montreal
festivals, Bellerose added. Conventioneers, by
contrast, tend to stay for shorter periods and
don't spend much because they're not out and about.
But projecting economic
spin-offs is not an exact science.
Tourism Montreal
based its figure on organizers' projections of
entrants, spectators and average length of stay,
and on Statistics Canada data about what tourists
typically spend - plus the 50-per-cent gay markup.
In total, those participating
in and watching Rendez-Vous events are expected
to spend $115.3 million on goods and services.
Another $56.5 million in taxes should go to governments'
coffers, allowing them to quickly recoup their
sponsorship cash.
But wild discrepancies
are common when it comes to economic-spinoff projections.
Organizers of Atlanta's bid for the 2006 Gay Games
pegged spin-offs at $500 million U.S. In Chicago,
Gay Games organizers are being conservative, forecasting
spinoffs at a mere $25 million U.S., based on
expectations only 24,000 competitors, friends,
family and tourists will take part in the event
- a fraction of the numbers expected in Montreal.
- - -
Those behind the
last Gay Games, in Sydney in 2002, had projected
$100 million in spinoffs. Two years later, it's
unclear how much was reaped from the event, which
was almost cancelled when it ran out of money.
International tourist
arrivals to Australia for the month of the Gay
Games jumped by 61,000, a 16-per-cent increase,
compared with the same month the previous year,
said Kim Moore of the Australian Tourist Commission.
But "it is difficult to say what percentage of
international visitors had timed their visit to
coincide with the games," which attracted 13,000
entrants, Moore said.
Bellerose said comparisons
to Sydney aren't appropriate.
Montreal is much
better placed to attract foreigners, especially
from the northeastern U.S. and Europe, he said.
Sydney's games also took place during the post-9/11
tourist drought.
And Montreal's liberal attitudes and long-running
big local gay events, including the Black &
Blue and Divers/Cité festivals, already give the
city a leg up in attracting gay travellers, he
added.
Rendez-Vous plays
up the city's gay-friendly reputation. Its Web
site points to a 2001 survey that indicated 77
per cent of Quebecers would give gay couples the
right to marry.
Montreal's tourism
industry already relies on the gay market, which
accounts for 600,000 to a million visitors a year
and 6 to 10 per cent of the $2.5 billion tourists
bring to the city annually, Tourism Montreal says.
City officials hope
Rendez-Vous and the publicity it generates will
give Montreal a boost as a gay-friendly destination,
luring more tourists in the future.
- - -
Rendez-Vous organizers
say they are confident in the projections, which
are based in part on the number of entrants and
spectators at Gay Games events in North America
- not Sydney.
"I think we can easily
meet those numbers," said Mark Tewksbury, a former
Olympic medallist in swimming who is co-president
of Rendez-Vous. Already, 10,000 entrants are ready
to sign up, he noted.
Montreal, which has
been working on its games since 2001, could also
benefit from troubles in Chicago, where organizers
are starting from scratch. The city of Chicago
is lukewarm about the Gay Games idea and some
local gay groups are against the event, worried
there is not enough time to prepare.
Tewksbury said competition
from Chicago is not a problem. Montreal has a
head start, is known for openness to gay culture,
and there are enough athletes to go to both, he
added, noting 160,000 gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgendered people are in sports leagues worldwide.
With $4.6 million
in the bank, Tewksbury said, Rendez-Vous is financially
much better placed than Chicago - and than previous
games, all of which have lost money. And since
most of the cash is to be spent in 2006, there
will be time to scale down should it be impossible
to raise the $9.6 million still needed, he added.
Governments, which
are simply sponsors, would not be left holding
the bag if Rendez-Vous is a flop, organizers say.
In the disastrous
1976 Montreal Summer Olympic Games, it was the
construction of the facilities that got the city
into financial trouble, not the games, Louise
Roy, chief executive of the Rendez-Vous organizing
committee, noted. "The games themselves were profitable,"
she said. "We don't have to build anything because
we're using existing facilities. The city is providing
them for free."
Rendez-Vous 2006
on the Web: www.montreal2006.info
ariga@thegazette.canwest.com
- - -
The Outlook
Organizers and Tourism Montreal estimate participants
and spectators will spend $171.8 million during
Rendez-Vous. Here's how 16,000 participants and
250,000 spectators are expected to spend their
money:
- Public transit: $4.497 million
- Private transportation: $12.107
million
- Accommodation: $38.398 million
- Food and drink: $29.865 million
- Entertainment and leisure:
$10.262 million
- Miscellaneous purchases:
$20.179 million
- Local taxes: $8.4 million
- Quebec taxes: $22.8 million
- Federal taxes: $25.3 million
Total: $171.8 million
Source: Rendez-Vous
2006, Tourism Montreal
- - -
Who
Pays for the Games?
Organizers of Rendez-Vous Montreal
2006 say they have raised the equivalent of $6.4
million from sponsors, including Labatt Breweries
and the three levels of government. That's 40
per cent of the $16-million they'll need to put
on the event.
Another
$3.6 million is to come from registration fees.
Ticket sales and merchandising will also bring
in millions. Labatt has not disclosed its contribution.
Here's where some
of the $6.4 million is coming from:
- Quebec government: $1 million
- Federal government: $1 million
- Montreal government:$1 million
In facilities and services, including use of
city parks, Jean Drapeau Park and the Claude
Robillard Centre.
- Tourism Montreal / Greater
Montreal Hotel Association: Will co-ordinate
the bookings of 10,000 hotel rooms reserved
for the games, with a $10-per-room-per-day fee
going to the event. Up to $1 million is to be
raised to pay for using the Olympic Stadium
and the Palais des Congrès.
- Société Radio-Canada: Organizers
put an undisclosed value on the live coverage
SRC is providing of opening and closing ceremonies,
plus one hour of daily coverage.
- Labatt: Not available
Source: Rendez-Vous
2006
Copyright (c) 2004, The Gazette
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