Portland expects big boost from skating event
For four days next week, the Greater Portland area will be host to a national skating championship expected to generate $2 million in economic activity.
From March 4-7, the 2009 U.S. Synchronized Skating Championships will be held at the Cumberland County Civic Center, an annual competition put on by U.S. Figure Skating. Around 1,850 skaters will compete in 91 teams, performing choreographed routines of eight to 20 skaters. The North Atlantic Figure Skating Club, based in Falmouth, worked to bring the competition to Portland and secured practice time at four other area arenas from Saco to Yarmouth, according to a press release from the organization.
The event is expected to attract 10,000 people, including athletes and their families, giving Greater Portland area hotels, restaurants and stores a much-needed boost during the slow winter months, says Barbara Whitten, president and CEO of the Greater Portland Convention and Visitors Bureau, which worked with the skating club to secure the venue. "It's particularly important during this time of year, because we really do need the business," she says.
So far, the CVB has tracked nearly 4,000 hotel rooms booked from event athletes, judges and their families -- and that doesn't include rooms booked by visitors and spectators, Whitten says. Welcome packages will give visitors information on traveling around the state for other attractions, and will hopefully entice them to return to Maine. Whitten says the event will help enhance the area's image as a sporting-event destination, and as a winter hot spot like Quebec. "I live for the day when businesses tell me they have too much winter business," she says.
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