Anchorage's economy comes out ahead from ski championships

January 02, 2010

Glacier Brewhouse server Chelsea Miller says events like the cross-country championships bring a sudden flow of guests to the restaurant. (Daniel Hernandez/KTUU-DT)

by Christine Kim
Saturday, January 2, 2010

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The U.S. Cross-Country Ski Championships bring hundreds of athletes from across the nation to Anchorage -- not to mention thousands of dollars that boost the local economy.

This is the second year that the championships have been held in Anchorage. One manager at a local business says January is typically the slowest month of the year, but he's expecting a bump in sales with guests in town.

It's not too hard for a restaurant's staff to notice a change in flow.

"It's almost drastic," said Glacier Brewhouse server Chelsea Miller. "During the wintertime, it's pretty slow, it's kind of steady. But when there's events in town, there's all these people coming in all the time, there's not really a break in between."

For the next few days, Miller expects both the restaurant's seats and her hands to be full as hundreds of athletes and coaches gather in town for the championships.

"The economic impact of the athletes coming in would then be about -- there's 315 participants and about 60 coaches, so we'd average about $1,500 back into our city per athlete," said Joey Caterinichio, chair of the championships' organizing committee. "Which is about probably a $500,000, $600,000 money in, back into the city."

It's a hefty chunk of change, spent here by out-of-state coaches like Chad Salmela as he and his College of Saint Scholastica team fly up from Minnesota.

"I budgeted this trip at about $10,000 with seven athletes and two coaches," Salmela said. "I would say half of that is spent in Anchorage, the other half is probably on airfare and transportation."

Salmela says the next few days will take up about a quarter of his team's annual budget. It's money that's expected to fuel local businesses.

Glacier Brewhouse manager Will Warren says he sees about a 5 to 10 percent jump in sales whenever events are held in town. It's boosts like these that help create an opportunity for economic growth.

"Before Christmas it was pretty dead," Miller said. "So we're hoping that the season's going to finally kick back in, with the skiing event and then Fur Rondy coming up, and it just kind of kicks into summer after that."

It's what Miller is keeping in mind as she expects the flow of customers to speed up -- and push through one of the slowest months of the season.

Caterinichio says the organizing committee won't know the exact amount of money the event brought in until after this year's race.

Contact Christine Kim at ckim@ktuu.com

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