BUFFALO (WBEN) - The tourism industry is hurting across the country and really across the world amid this global pandemic. On a local level, the number of business opportunities lost throughout Erie County and specifically the Convention Center, is quite staggering.
"It's had a very big, significant impact overall to not be able to hold sporting events, social events at the Convention Center, or even meetings and conventions," said Visit Buffalo Niagara President & CEO Patrick Kaler. "Over the course of this time, we have canceled 134 different events throughout Erie County - 81 of those would have taken place at the Convention Center."
Of course, this has a domino effect on industries surrounding the Convention Center such as hotels, restaurants and bars.
"The overall expected attendance would have been over 126,000, over 50,000 room nights, and an economic impact of over $44 million," Kaler continued.
However, Kaler isn't too concerned about any lasting effect the pandemic will have on local tourism and the convention business in downtown Buffalo and Western New York, saying tourism is a resilient industry. In fact, he has high hopes about some opportunities in the years ahead.
"For the future, we have three major pieces of business that we're bidding on right now for 2023," said Kaler. "There is a lot of pent up opportunities out there because we have learned that Zoom meetings and meeting virtually is not what people want - they want that face-to-face contact and interaction."
Like many other struggling industries, Kaler says those in the tourism industry are lobbying for industry-specific funding that will help to offset much of the economic damage wrought by the pandemic.
"That's something we've been working on at the national level is to get federal stimulus packages specific for our tourism industry," he said.
