Tour of Alberta race leg wellworth the cost, Dodwell says

Olds & District Chamber of Commerce president Stephen Dodwell says the feedback he's received from businesses about the Tour of Alberta bike race leg that ended in Olds Sept. 2 has been positive overall, with a few frustrations expressed.

Chamber of commerce members were asked to fill in surveys with their thoughts on the event and provide them to the chamber.

The 182-kilometre stage was officially called the Pomeroy Inn & Suites Stage 2 Kananaskis to Olds segment, in partnership with the Town of Olds and Mountain View County.

"I had about 15 or so responses, so the response rate is not huge," Dodwell says.

"The general feedback seems to be 'great event, great exposure, lovely to have this sort of positive vibe, if you like, coming into Olds on the international stage,'" he adds.

"I think if anything, the niggles were perhaps the communication from some (members) of the organizing committee back to specific businesses could have been better.

"I think some of them didn't seem to know what their role might be -- or could have been expected to be -- in supporting the event.

"And I think somewhat the (rainy) weather didn't help. Because then when it happened, they didn't see a great return upon the day because the crowds they might have expected to get (didn't materialize)."

Dodwell said businesses such as restaurants seem to have benefited from the event as people came in to buy coffee or meals, but some other business owners who were not in that industry were frustrated by the fact that portions of at least some streets were closed – however briefly. They believe that hurt their business that day.

"There's no feedback from anybody saying that the residential sides were disrupted or anything else, just a few street closures," Dodwell said.

Some business people felt too much public money was spent to host the Kananaskis to Olds leg, but Dodwell doesn't agree.

He agrees with Olds Institute executive director Mitch Thomson, who says the total cost to the community was about $60,000. That includes $50,000 in public funds ($15,000 each from the town and Mountain View County, and $10,000 each from Olds College and Olds Institute). The remainder came from private sponsors, service clubs, etc.

Thomson says normally, the rights to host a Tour of Alberta leg start cost $100,000 and the rights to hold a leg finish cost $150,000. That's not including hundreds of volunteer hours. So he sees that as a real bargain for the community.

Thomson says organizers were able to obtain the rights to host the leg that finished in Olds because the Pomeroy Group stepped in as a sponsor.

According to Tour of Alberta organizers, more than 50 million people in about 100 countries follow the race via media.

Dodwell too says normally, there's no way this community could obtain the kind of exposure it received worldwide for that price.

"I think it's important to know that we did get value for money," he says. "I don't think it's a huge amount of money, considering that that's international coverage and national coverage and it brought people in."

Dodwell points out that ads promoting the community in general were run several times during the race.

"If you had to pay for that exposure, pay to have those adverts on the television and pay to be seen and be part of some sort of travel/tourism documentary, whatever, it would have cost millions. This cost very little. Look what it costs to get stuff on television," he says.

"If you go back and replay some of that stuff, go back online and look at it, it looks gorgeous.

"You're coming up from Kananaskis through up the hill, up the highways up into Olds, you're coming through to Olds, you take that bit through the residential area and then you finish it off in the park, and then they show where the ceremony was and they sort of scan around Centennial park; there's trees and green.

"You can't see individual businesses, but you can see the main street; it's a glorious area. And if you are heading down to the international places everybody knows – Banff, Lake Louise and those places – well, we're just around the corner."

Dodwell stresses the goal was not immediate payoff for the town and business community, but exposure that will pay off long-term.

"You're selling the county and the town as a destination that says, 'you know, when you're driving through, you're coming down the highway, pop in. It's a nice, forward-thinking, beautiful community full of all sorts of individual businesses," he says.

"There were undoubtedly things we could have done better, but we had short lead time in. And I think the town, the community, the county, needs to congratulate itself a little bit. Look what we can do in such a short time.

"I think if we went for it again in a couple of years' time or whatever the plan may be, that, with more time to organize, we could make this event really special."

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