U.S.|Arizona Law Said to Harm Convention Businesses
Arizona Law Said to Harm Convention Businesses
By Marc Lacey
PHOENIX — The scene at the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa in Scottsdale on Wednesday was a convention organizer's dream: more than 1,000 delegates, many of them top leaders in the travel industry, hobnobbing over seminars and golf. But the sold-out crowd at the PhoCusWright convention was not reflective of the challenges Arizona is facing in attracting large meetings.
The state's convention business as a whole is down $45 million this year, hurt by controversy over the state's immigration crackdown that went into effect over the summer, according to a study to be released Thursday.
Spinoff effects bring economic losses into the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the study, commissioned by the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington. Potential future effects of fewer convention bookings could mean Arizona will receive an overall hit of more than $750 million, the study said.
The center, which opposes Arizona's hard-line approach to illegal immigration, hired Elliott D. Pollack & Company, a respected Arizona economic consulting firm, to estimate how much the state would be likely to lose when it comes to conventions. The purpose was to send a message to the other states considering Arizona-style immigration crackdowns.
"You can't unring the bell in Arizona, but other states looking at this need to know the consequences of going down that path," said Angela Maria Kelley, the center's vice president for immigration policy and advocacy. "We wanted to take a cold, hard look at the measurable economic impacts of laws like this."
The State Senate president, Russell Pearce, a Republican who sponsored the law to encourage illegal immigrants to leave the state, dismissed the report as a fiction and said illegal immigrants were costing the state billions.
"I get tired of this," he said. "Arizona is not the bad guy. Arizona didn't make illegal illegal. We're enforcing the law."
Greenbuild International Conference and Expo was held in Phoenix in 2009, but the state's convention business is down.Credit...Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press
The study focused only on the decline in convention bookings, not on the law's effects on leisure travel, economic development or other areas. Up until now, the only estimate of how the law known as Senate Bill 1070 had affected conventions came from the Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association, which said in August that the state had lost at least 40 conventions and $15 million in lodging revenue.
That was considered a lowball estimate, which the new study says was about a third of the actual losses so far. Other effects from conventions already canceled include 2,761 lost jobs, $86.5 million in lost earnings, $253 million in lost economic output and $9.4 million in lost tax revenues, the study found.
The study estimates that the losses will only grow because large convention bookings typically occur several years in advance. The decline in business came at an awful time for Arizona's hospitality industry, which endured a devastating year in 2009, with the economic downturn and the so-called A.I.G. effect, or controversy surrounding luxury corporate retreats.
But the hotel association is cautiously optimistic that the controversy is ebbing. "The rhetoric has started to die down and some of the boycotts have been rescinded," said Kristen Jarnagin, the hotel association's vice president for communications. "We're approaching peak season, and we're beginning to hire a little bit."
Those hurt most of all by the boycotts and canceled business, Ms. Jarnagin said, have been hotel workers, many of them Hispanic, who have been laid off during the slow times.
The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which represents 3,000 Hispanic-owned businesses across the country, opposed Arizona's immigration approach but did not favor a boycott because of the disproportionate effect such sanctions would have on Latinos.
"Not only are they insulted and abandoned by their state, but they could end up unemployed," said Javier Palomarez, the chamber's president and chief executive.
But Mr. Palomarez did not agree that Arizona's economic woes are behind it, despite the fact that a federal judge has blocked some of the law's most controversial portions. "I don't think anybody in the Hispanic community has forgotten this," he said. "We're very mindful of this legislation."
The National Minority Supplier Development Council said it had moved its fall conference, which was expected to bring 7,000 attendees to Phoenix last month, to Miami Beach. Similarly, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., the oldest black fraternity, relocated its July convention to Las Vegas.