10,000 conventioneers to gather next year
Two years ago when the Rhode Island State Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police bid to hold the FOP national conference in Providence, they found themselves competing with the lights and dazzle of Las Vegas and the draw of Florida’s palm trees and Disney.
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Touting good “old fashioned clambakes,” Waterfire, and miles and miles of coastline, Rhode Island won the right to host the biennial event.
Now local tourism officials and RI’s FOP Chapter are preparing to host what many are calling the largest convention in state history.
“This event has been years in the making,” said Daniel Silva president of the RI FOP. “The Rhode Island state lodge spent many months lobbying the national group, and finally at the 1999 convention, FOP members voted to meet in Rhode Island, rather than in its competing cities of Orlando and Las Vegas. This was a major coup for our state.”
It’s a coup that could come with substantial financial benefits.
According to the Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau, more than 10,000 people will fill at least 15,000 hotel rooms for the event, which is scheduled for Aug. 4-8 of next year. In addition, officials estimate that those visitors will spend close to $8.4 million while they are here.
“This is just $8.5 million in direct spending,” said Laura Nicholson, director of communications for the Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau. “That simply is what they spend money on including hotels, shopping and souvenirs. That figure doesn’t include indirect spending which is also going to feel a significant impact.”
In Phoenix, where the convention was last held, the local economy got a $5 million boost when an estimated 12,000 came out for the 2001 event. Diana Nye, Records Coordinator for the Convention Center in Phoenix, couldn’t say what projections were before the event.
But the convention also comes with some costs. Members of the state chapter are responsible for providing transportation for the time that delegates are in town, in addition to sponsoring events. Wayne Sacco, director of the state lodge, estimated that transportation alone could top $100,000, and said the organization is already looking for corporate sponsors to offset the costs.
Part of the reason transportation costs are so high, Sacco said, is because of the state’s limited number of hotels.
“We have people staying in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and some have opted for Connecticut,” he said. “We booked all of Providence, Warwick and Pawtucket. We started to look for hotels closer to the convention center, within a loop, so that we could save on transportation. Southeastern Massachusetts is closer than people think.”
Nicholson has already fielded calls from concerned convention goers about their accommodations.
“We have people in cities from Mystic (Connecticut) to Woonsocket, to Newport, to Seekonk (Massachusetts),” she said. “People don’t understand that Seekonk is five minutes away. They don’t realize how small Rhode Island really is. That’s an education piece for us.”
In addition, she said it’s a situation that is not uncommon.
“Convention attendees often have to travel,” Nicholson said. “The ideal group that we currently shoot for is between 2,000 and 3,000 attendees. That way everyone can stay fairly close. I don’t think having people spread out is a detriment. We have to work a little hard to market Rhode Island to larger groups like this one.”
Jim Pasco, executive director of the national FOP, isn’t concerned about Rhode Island’s hotel situations, instead he said, he is looking forward to experiencing many of the things state FOP officials touted in their initial proposal.
“Rhode Island made a compelling case and that’s why they won the bid,” he said. “Anytime that you have an influx of that many people in one place for a period of five to ten days, you are in tourism mode. That’s just the way it is.”
According to Nicholson, it’s clear that the conference comes with a wide variety of benefits, and people would be hard pressed to find a drawback.
“They like to say they are cops and they can protect themselves,” she said of the national FOP. “There is often this many people (visiting Rhode Island); this time they are all with one group.”
