INSIDE TUCSON BUSINES:  Mon., Feb. 8, 2008

Why isn’t this news? Gem show loss for 5 years is $500M

David Hatfield, Publisher
 

I’m surprised this didn’t make for more of an impact. Here we are relishing the success of this year’s 54th annual Tucson Gem, Mineral and Fossil Showcase. When it comes to economic impact from tourism, there is no bigger event for Tucson.

To think the 50,000-plus people who come to Tucson each year the first two weeks of February won’t be coming for the next five years.  The Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau says last year tourists left behind $100 million.  That means losing the gem show for five years is a half billion dollars not coming into the region.

It makes you wonder if we can survive economically.

And this, on top of the setback of the Chicago White Sox no longer coming for Major League Baseball Spring Training.  What’s next, is someone going to tell us the World Golf Championships - Accenture Match Play Championship isn’t coming back? And, after 83 years, could La Fiesta de los Vaqueros, the Tucson Rodeo, ride off into the sunset?

Think about it. With the loss of $500 million, who needs that 700-room Sheraton hotel the city is talking about building downtown? Come to think of it, who needs a downtown? It’s just a place where government workers go.

Downtown will become even more vacant because we won’t need as many of those government workers. Surely even the government will figure out that in an economic slump, there is less need for their services and the people to run them.

We could even tell the Arizona Department of Transportation they can forget about reconnecting any on-ramps or off-ramps after they’ve finished widening Interstate 10 through Tucson. That will save the state’s taxpayers some money that can be put to good use fixing up the freeways in the Phoenix area.

This is bad for Tucson. It makes you wonder just how many more economic hits our region can take.  Like me, are you wondering why you had not heard about this $500 million hit to the local economy before? 

I learned about it Feb. 8. But I still haven’t read anything about in either of the two daily newspapers or seen a report on TV.

The reason why you haven’t heard about it, is that it’s not the gem show that’s leaving town. Instead, the $500 million economic loss came from the local home building industry. In his annual New Construction, Review and Analysis, John Strobeck, owner of Bright Futures Business Consultants, reported the total economic contribution plummeted 25 percent to $1.7 billion last year from $2.2 billion in 2006.

That was worse than losing the gem show for the next five years, because it happened all in just one year. But if it had been the gem show, some official might want to do something about it.