For Many, the Olympic Boon Is a Bust

The Olympics were supposed to pump $1.2 billion into the coffers of Utah businesses, giving the Salt Lake City area an envious boost in a sluggish U.S. economy.

But halfway through the 2002 Winter Games, Melva Sine, president of the Utah Restaurant Assn., is among those who have all but given up.

“Business is worse than if we hadn’t had the Olympics here at all,” she said, projecting an overall drop of 10% in receipts for the area’s 2,500 restaurants by the time the Games end Feb. 24. “We just have not seen the big spike that everybody was getting all hyped up for. It’s really too bad.”

Tourism leaders had projected 70,000 to 100,000 visitors daily during the Olympics. And there are pockets where business is booming: Hotels in downtown Salt Lake City are sold out, and Park City, with its tight-knit Main Street, outdoor beer tents and popular propane warming stations, is hopping.

But many merchants throughout the region are complaining because regular customers have been scared off by warnings of gridlock, big crowds and parking headaches.

Frustration abounds in Salt Lake’s outlying areas, where hotels still have rooms available and shops and restaurants are struggling to attract customers.

“You could drive a race car down our freeways,” grumbled Carol Bohm, who manages an antique store and coffee shop in Ogden, about 35 miles north of Salt Lake City. “Someone needs to get the word out.”

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson tried to do just that this week, holding a news conference to urge locals to “come on out” and stressing how easy it is to get around, park, eat and spend. Parking lot operators who had planned to charge $50 a car at prime lots within walking distance of the downtown core have had to slash the price to $15 because too many spaces were going unused.

“All anybody heard for a full month leading up to the Olympics was: ‘Don’t drive unless you have to, avoid downtown, parking will be a nightmare,’” said Sine, who has asked Salt Lake City officials to spend more money on marketing aimed at residents. “So the locals have either gone out of town, or they’re doing what they were told. They’re staying away.”

David Baird, economic development director of the downtown business district organization, agreed that local residents have avoided the festivities “more than we would have liked,” but he said it is too early to determine the Winter Games’ ultimate financial effect.

“To me,” he said, “the real economic impact is going to be seen long after the Games are gone.”

“I like to look past the $1 billion we’re projecting for 14 days of events and focus on the long term. Salt Lake City has been introduced to the world, and you can’t put a dollar figure on that kind of exposure,” Baird said.

Meanwhile, businesses are grappling with other problems, such as security measures that have reduced customer traffic. Because visitors are shuttled to and from venues in outlying area, they are not staying around to browse through shops or dine at restaurants as they would if they didn’t have a bus to catch back to the city, merchants said.

Susan Fox, who manages the Country Corner deli about 50 miles outside of Salt Lake in the Heber Valley, said shuttles packed with visitors roll past her community on the way to Soldier Hollow, where the Nordic combined skiing event is being held.

“They don’t stop,” she said with a sigh. “They blow right by.”

It’s a similar story around the E-Center ice arena, nine miles south of downtown. When the crowds leave the hockey games, they climb aboard shuttles and head straight for downtown, restaurant employees say. So several eateries, including Applebee’s and Chili’s, already have laid off the extra workers hired before the Games began.

But even downtown, with the Olympic Medals Plaza, blocks of corporate sponsor tents and Olympic superstores to attract tourists, some merchants still believe that they are missing out. Others say visitors are not spending as much as hoped and openly long for the usual skiing tourist crowds that normally spill through the Salt Lake City area this time of year.

“If you’re not right there in front of their noses, you don’t get the business,” said Phil Bollen, whose contemporary art and jewelry store is tucked in the basement of a downtown office building. “Oh, and if you’re not selling something with the Olympic logo on it, you won’t even get a second glance.”

But around the corner and down an alley at the Dead Goat Saloon, where a pint of beer is going for $5 compared with $2 last month, owner Dan Darger said he was pleased with the way business was going.

“I think everybody was all geared up for it to be totally insane, and it hasn’t been insane,” he said. “But it has been good. We’ve had crowds, and they’ve all been fun. It’s a good pace.”

Although downtown Salt Lake is capturing the biggest crowds, officials and business owners say it is nearby Park City that has emerged as the darling of the Olympics, with outdoor video screens, a dance platform and live concerts dominating the scene until the bars close at 1 a.m.

With 45,000 people a day funneling into Park City, restaurateurs such as Greg Schirf are left wondering what all the grumbling is about.

“We are going nuts here,” said Schirf, who runs the Wasatch Brew Pub and has twice nearly run out of his popular Polygamy Porter microbrew. “We’re making 200 more lunches a day than we anticipated and at least that many more dinners. Business is better than I ever dreamed.”