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Sunday, May 14, 2000

Running is economic opportunity
Beach To Bay shows what an event can do

Running is good for more than your health, it turns out. It can be great for the economy.
   Corpus Christi will be overrun with runners six days from now. That's when 7,848 of them will participate in the 25th Beach To Bay Relay Marathon. That's 1,308 teams of six runners each. Fifty-eight percent of them will be from out of town, race officials say.
   Based on those numbers, Edward Dramberger, a tourism consultant who heads Del Mar College's Travel and Tourism Department, estimates $760,000 in Beach To Bay-generated expenditures for lodging, meals and entertainment. He estimates the ripple effect through the economy at $3 for every $1 spent.
   Company connection
   Visitors from U.S.
   Those two teams, which include some marathon runners, also go to out-of-town and out-of-state events wearing T-shirts with the name of both the restaurant and the city, he said
   "All it is, is just fun. You get to know people from other cities, other states. Beach To Bay is getting to be one of the biggest attractions in Corpus Christi. It is bringing in people from all over the United States."
   Beach To Bay already has generated revenue from local runners this year, from sales of athletic shoes and attire. Jerry Braden, a race organizer and owner of Fleet Feet, credits Beach To Bay for helping the store survive lean years during the oil bust of the 1980s. The race provides incentive for people to train, and that often includes a purchase of new shoes sometime in the spring.
   Beach To Bay promotes Corpus Christi to the visitors who participate, several hoteliers said. The hoteliers like Beach To Bay because participants go home, talk about the city to their friends, and come back with their families.
   Does a body good
   "This is always positive news and it gets picked up on TV and newspapers all across the country," said Ralph Ehrlich, general manager of Ramada Inn Bayfront. His hotel has rented about 70 rooms to Beach To Bay runners.
   The training for Beach To Bay has hard-to-measure economic benefits related to health, Braden said.
   "It gets numerous local people off the couch and into exercising. That's good for the economy in a secondary way on a different scale because healthy people are less of a burden on society."
   Most would agree, although running certainly generates business for the orthopedic, podiatric, physical therapy and chiropractic segments of the health care industry.
   Local charities also benefit from Beach To Bay, which gives away $40,000 to $45,000 a year, organizer Doug McBee said.
   Running also benefits the local economy in a hard-to-measure way that I'll call the Postcard Effect. It's my fervent belief that those who run, power-walk, bicycle, inline-skate or skateboard along the city's more picturesque venues such as the seawall are doing something good for the economy at the same time that they're improving their health. Even the least attractive, clumsiest and most poorly conditioned bayfront exerciser adds something beautiful to the bayfront scene.
   All of this brings me to a somewhat related issue that continues to baffle me - the continued refusal of the city government to allow bicyclists to ride over Harbor Bridge as part of an organized ride around the bay. This refusal, reaffirmed last week by the City Council, effectively kills the ride, which in past years attracted about 500 cyclists per event.
   All I can say, from the experience of having participated in organized rides here and in other cities, is that the city is biting the hand before the hand can feed it. Hoteliers and restaurant and nightclub owners are being cheated out of a revenue source. And the city is being cheated out of a marketing opportunity that wouldn't cost it one marketing dollar because the riders themselves foot the bill through entry fees and sponsorships.
   We're talking sales tax revenue and hotel-motel room tax revenue, which pays for those Columbus ships.
   "By closing the bridge," Ehrlich said, "it's one more attitude in this city that we'll do what we want to, to make things harder for you, in business and in pleasure."
   He's not alone among hoteliers who feel that way.
   "We have to find more ways to say yes than find ways to say no to this kind of business," said Dave Prewitt, general manager of the Holiday Inn-Airport.
   Out-of-town cyclists tend to make a two-night mini-vacation out of these rides. My observation is that they're a high-end, free-spending group. I surmise this from the bicycles they ride, which cost more than some cars I've owned, the high-dollar places they stay, the distances they travel by plane or Lexus to get to these events, and from conversations with them about what they do for a living.
   Influence of a bike ride
   The police chief says the bridge is too dangerous and those who have pedaled over the bridge in past years, myself included, respectfully disagree. I am the exact opposite of a daredevil and, of all the things I could say about my several experiences riding over the bridge, "Egad!" isn't one of them. I've been at greater risk on the rides at Six Flags and Fiesta Texas, and on sailboats and sailboards in the bay.
   Picture, if you will, the bureaucrats in Dallas or San Antonio shutting down Six Flags and Fiesta Texas, or the ones here putting an end to the Wednesday night sailing races, which are another contributor to the Postcard Effect.
   My experiences at bike rides at South Padre Island, Goliad and Waco have convinced me that those cities would be nice places to live. Yes, Waco! How hard a sell could Corpus Christi be to visiting affluent cyclists?
   In 1991 I did a ride north of San Antonio and to this day I cherish the memory of conquering a pair of steep hills nicknamed the Devil's Backbone. The Harbor Bridge is that kind of memory for a lot of riders from elsewhere. Denying that memorable experience to potential visitors is costing you money.
   Many of the out-of-town runners will arrive Friday evening and stay overnight in local hotels. Many will stay Saturday night, too. Elsa Arroyo, a meeting planner with Mary Garrett & Associates, blocked off 1,034 room nights at special rates for Beach To Bay participants at hotels and condominiums from downtown Corpus Christi to Port Aransas.
   Those don't include the customers who will wait until they get here that weekend to find a hotel, said Arroyo, hotel officials and race officials. And, of course, those runners must eat. Frank's Spaghetti House always draws a big Beach To Bay crowd, which seems obvious because spaghetti is typical night-before carbo-loading food. But the effect on Frank's is noteworthy because it's on Leopard Street near Buccaneer Stadium, a long way from the race route, and from the clusters of restaurants downtown or on South Padre Island Drive.
   There usually isn't a wait for a table at Frank's on most Friday or Saturday nights, but there usually is a wait of 15 minutes or so on the night before Beach To Bay, said Vanessa Moody, who waits tables and helps manage the restaurant, owned by her father, Mike Moody.
   Beach To Bay is a chance for companies to represent themselves in the community and foster teamwork among their employees who participate. Hundreds of company logos will be seen on shirts and shorts. Among them will be Citgo, Koch and Valero refineries, Celanese, Horton Automatics, Corpus Christi Army Depot, Water Street Seafood Co. and Rosita's Mexican Restaurant. Rosita's is sponsoring two teams of senior citizens, as it has done for several years, said co-owner Johnny Rodela.


Tom Whitehurst

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