When the elephants thunder into Philadelphia in 2000, the vibrations are expected to shake an incredibly bountiful money tree, showering dollars all over the region.
The economic impact of the Republican National Convention will almost certainly exceed $125 million in direct spending on hotel rooms, meals and the like, along with at least $175 million in spinoff benefits, David L. Cohen said yesterday. Cohen, Mayor Rendell's former chief of staff, is cochairman of Philadelphia 2000, the committee formed to woo a political convention.
The estimate is based on a Federal Reserve Board study of the economic blessings felt in Chicago from the 1996 Democratic convention, with a little extra figured in for four years' worth of inflation, Cohen said.
"There is no convention you can host that has a greater economic impact than a national political convention," he said. "Most people agree the only thing you can host that has a greater economic impact is the Olympics."
It doesn't matter whether it's the Republicans or Democrats who come to town, doesn't matter who is nominated. For a host city, a national political convention is one gigantic advertisement for itself, a peerless opportunity to announce to the entire world that the city is no backwater but is in fact wonderful and open for business.
Rendell wasted no time yesterday in summing up the importance of the Republicans to Philadelphia's needy self-image: "I think it's safe to say that we're no longer a footnote in-between New York and Washington."
A national convention "really brings you credibility," said Herb Vederman, a Rendell adviser on economic development. "All kinds of people will say: 'If this group can pick Philadelphia to come to, I can pick Philadelphia to come to.' "
The convention will bring hundreds of delegates and their spouses, and scores of business leaders and lobbyists, all visitors who, if they like the city, might well come back another time.
The convention will attract thousands of journalists. Besides reporting on politics, they will write scores of newspaper travel pieces on the Philadelphia region's attractions. For a week, Philadelphia locales will be the TV backdrops for CNN, Good Morning America, the works.
In San Diego, where the Republicans last met, business leaders still bask in the 1996 convention's glow. "We look at the convention as a weeklong television commercial for your city as a destination," Salvatore Giametta, a spokesman for the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau, said in an interview this summer.
"Many of the benefits are intangible," he said. "One morning, I heard one of the news anchors say, 'Here we are in perhaps the prettiest city in the world.' That wasn't scripted, and people heard it all over the country."
According to the Greater San Diego Area Chamber of Commerce, the four-day convention attracted 30,000 visitors who spent $26 million on hotel rooms. But there has been no follow-up study to show the convention's broader effect on the San Diego economy.
Despite the lack of data, San Diego "absolutely" would host a convention again, Giametta said. "We think it was good for the tourism industry without a doubt."
Brian Ford, an accountant for Philadelphia 2000, said that insisting on a study to prove that Philadelphia will benefit mightily from the GOP meeting "is like saying you need a study to show that a car works."
"If we can bring national and international publicity to this city," he said, "and we can bring thousands and thousands of people to this city and get the business community and the government and the politicians behind it and proudly showcase the Philadelphia region, who could possibly measure the enormity of that benefit?"
Alan Novak, Pennsylvania state Republican chairman, said he expected the convention's benefits to be felt in suburbs on both sides of the Delaware River. "The convention is going to fill hotels, delegates are going to see the sights, there will be get-togethers," said Novak, a resident of Coatesville. "I fully expect to see the impact out in Chester County."
The Republican convention will cost Philadelphia "somewhat more" than $35 million in public and private money and city services, Cohen said. He said yesterday that he could not discuss specifics of the host committee's contract with the Republican National Committee because details are still being negotiated.
Cohen earlier was quoted as saying that taxpayers would foot $17 million or $18 million -- $7 million to be provided by the state and $10 million to $11 million by the city. About $5 million of that total would be in cash and the rest in in-kind services such as police. Corporate and business donors are being counted on to kick in $12 million in cash and $2 million to $3 million in in-kind services, such as limousines or meeting space.
In a sense, the Republican National Convention has already had a significant economic effect on Philadelphia. Landing a national convention has been Rendell's overall goal for his second term. It's been the spur for 13 new hotels being built, part of $2 billion to $3 billion in projects in various stages of development, according to Vederman.
"Who ever could have imagined eight years ago that you would have a national convention here?" Vederman said. "It's mind-boggling. Absolutely mind-boggling."