RNC has intangible benefits for Milwaukee
The Republican National Convention could generate an estimated $200 million economic impact for the Milwaukee area this summer, according to local officials. There are questions about whether that figure is overstated. It’s compiled through estimated visitor spending at hotels, restaurants and other businesses — as well as what those businesses in turn spend to accommodate up to 50,000 visitors, and how much their employees spend from wages earned during the RNC. Meanwhile, convention supporters also cite intangible benefits, including the attention Milwaukee will receive from global news coverage of the event, which runs July 15-18.
The intangible benefits of hosting a national political convention, or other high-profile event, include news media reports which mention the host city.
Milwaukee experienced that in 2021 when the Milwaukee Bucks won the NBA championship. That’s according to Visit Milwaukee, a publicly funded nonprofit corporation which promotes Milwaukee as a travel destination.
The “media spotlight the games generated offered a once-in-a-generation chance at branding the city on a worldwide stage,” Visit Milwaukee said in a 2021 report.
The organization ran a 30-second commercial during the playoffs, targeted travel media and sports meeting planners with email campaigns, and
partnered with the Bucks’ DJ Shawna to create a presentation at a meeting planners trade show.
The RNC presents another big opportunity to take advantage of outside news coverage, said Claire Koenig, Visit Milwaukee’s vice president of communications and advocacy. But that impact can be difficult to determine.
Visit Milwaukee obtains estimated counts of news media mentions of Milwaukee related to the RNC, she said.
“But what happens in the hearts and minds of people who read that coverage — we’ll never actually know,” Koenig said.
Indeed, there are a lack of “direct metrics” to measure the news coverage impact, said Emily Lauer, vice president of public relations and communications at Destination Cleveland, a counterpart to Visit Milwaukee. Cleveland hosted the 2016 RNC.
Milwaukee, Cleveland use RNC to tell positive stories
Cleveland used the RNC to tell positive stories about the city — a tactic Visit Milwaukee is embracing.
The key is to be proactive, Lauer said.
“Either a community tells its story or someone else does it for you,” she said.
Both Lauer and Koenig said that includes acknowledging a host city’s problems while also discussing how the community is responding to them.
Spending by visitors to Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County was $5.6 billion in 2016, Lauer said. That increased 14.3% to $6.4 billion in 2019 — the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the travel industry.
Spending by visitors to Milwaukee County in 2022 totaled $2.192 billion, according to Visit Milwaukee. That’s a 23.5% increase from 2021 — the year of the NBA finals.
That year-to-year increase coincided with a nationwide boost in travel as the pandemic’s economic effects continued to recede.
Travelers who visit Milwaukee for the RNC will be exposed to the city’s charms, Koenig said.
But, she added, “It’s really hard to attribute a huge bump in spending to any one thing.”
National political conventions’ economic impact is overstated, said Victor Matheson, an economics professor at The College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Matheson draws that conclusion in part from a 2017 paper he co-authored that examined the economic impact from the 2008 and 2012 Republican and Democratic National Conventions.
It said the conventions increased hotel revenue by approximately $20 million on average — “which suggests that host cities’ claims of economic impacts of $150 million or more may be implausible.”
Matheson said political conventions have potential intangible benefits. But they also come with risks, he said.
“You never remember the cities where things go well,” Matheson said. “You’ll always remember the cities were things go terribly.”
For Milwaukee, this July’s RNC provides a unique opportunity, Koenig said.
It’s the city’s second chance to show the world it can successfully host a national political convention, she said. That was to happen with the 2020 DNC before the pandemic shut it down.
“This should be a point of pride no matter what side of the aisle you’re on. You should not underestimate the importance of doing that.” Claire Koenig Visit Milwaukee’s vice president of communications and advocacy
“This should be a point of pride no matter what side of the aisle you’re on,” Koenig said. “You should not underestimate the importance of doing that.”
She cited one other intangible benefit: Milwaukeeans can use the convention to reflect on how they think about themselves, and their community — with a positive mindset.
“The worst in my mind is if it’s Milwaukeeans saying bad things about Milwaukee,” Koenig said.