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July visitors to Augusta to spend $6.1 million

By Gracie Shepherd

Staff Writer

Friday, June 29, 2012 12:51 PM

Last updated 7:35 PM

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Visitors to the Augusta area are expected to spend more than $6.1 million in July, according to numbers released by the Augusta Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The largest group is expected to be the 27th annual Augusta Southern Nationals drag boat race, with 22,700 people in attendance spending $1.2 million from July 17-22.

The Nike Peach Jam basketball tournament is predicted to bring in 7,400 people that will spend $1.5 million from July 18-22.

Also that weekend, the National Fellowship Conference of the Deliverance Evangelical Church will bring 1,225 people to Augusta and $454,860 in spending.

Peggy Seigler, the vice president of sales and marketing for the CVB, said July is a strong tourism month with family reunions and off-season meetings adding to scheduled events such as the boat races.

“A lot of people think it’s too hot to have anything, but summer is a great time for meetings because prices are down,” she said. “We are an easy, great place to have them.”

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Little Lamb 06/29/12 - 01:31 pm

Obvious

They always talk about how much money vacationers spend here, but they never publish the money we Augustans spend away from here when we go on vacation. It seems to me it would be a wash.

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scgator 06/29/12 - 04:54 pm

Visitors to the Augusta area

Visitors to the Augusta area are expected to spend more than $6.1 million in July, according to numbers released by the Augusta Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Just like the Augusta Sports Council, their estimates are ALWAYS on the liberal side; but NEVER do you see actual numbers after these "visitors" leave town. ALWAYS INFLATED numbers ALWAYS make your group look good when asking for more taxpayer money to fund your over paid agenda. A new twist would be to do it like most sales organizations do it; if you make your anticipated goals, you get paid, and if you fall short, well you lose ! It would be real easy for me to set up an event and announce we will bring $2M into the local economy, and never have to prove it or suffer any loss because of not meeting anticipated numbers. I had a small sporting event here once (a non-alcoholic event - insurance company would not allow it); the sports council told me if I would allow alcohol then they could get me "grant" money to help defray overhead, but if I didn't, then they couldn't help me with any funds from anywhere. This post is not about me getting a less than good deal from the SC; I just believe that the people doing the forecasting should be held accountable for what they sell to Augusta.