But there are also indirect benefits that are sometimes considered. People calculate the spin-off effect of tourism dollars and how many times outside expenditures coming in roll over or are spent locally before they leave town. Now, the range of the rollover of tourism expenditures is pretty broad. Generally the industry says about three to seven times. I would saw the seven times is probably Orlando where you’re getting squeezed for something overpriced every time you turn around. The more typical ratio that we would use would be in the range of two to four times, but that’s still an enormous impact on a local economy.

So there is this indirect side that’s not just the hotel bill. It’s what the hotel spends it on with a local food supplier, and a laundry service, and paying salaries, and all of that. And taxes: income taxes, sales taxes, all the things that come out of it indirectly that also flow to the benefit of the region.

Tourist expenditures are generally measured in one or two ways: either by person trips or by trips. These are just sort of baseline definitions. What we mean by a person trip is one person traveling 50 miles or more away from home, maybe just for the day and maybe overnight. And a trip is one or more people from the same household traveling together. So, a family traveling to Buffalo would constitute a trip. If it’s three people traveling, that’s three person trips. Okay? It’s basic terminology.

Well, economists — and I don’t claim to be an economist. I’m an architect by training and a preservationist, which automatically means I have some sort of warped view of economics (laughter). The economist would say that that is the most expedient way to measure value. I would counter that to say it’s one way and it’s a very important way, and it’s an important way politically, because that’s almost always the easiest and most direct measure of impact. Dollars spent, jobs created, all the things that we always talk about in examining and justifying a public - private development project. What’s the economic leverage coming out of it?

But those aren’t the only values that count. I’m going to spend a good bit of time talking about broad patterns that have happened in other places, growing a bit on what Tom said earlier. But they aren’t the only values and I don’t want to lose sight of that. The other values, and these particularly apply to heritage and cultural tourism, are the sense of community and of shared experience.

Now, this is a very, very important thing as our major institutions in our national culture have diminished in importance. The church as an institution doesn’t have the same importance that it had 30, 40 years ago. The educational system doesn’t have the same importance or respect — I’m not saying this is right, I’m just saying this is — doesn’t command the same respect or importance that it did 30, 40 years ago. We, as a people, are looking for something that will link us together as a community.

I heard a presentation not long ago where someone said, well, retail is what links us together and it just made the hair on my neck stand up to think that the only way we can come together is as consumers. That’s pathetic and I don’t believe it’s true. I hope it’s not true. But that sense of community and shared experience is a critical value that we are looking for and I believe historic sites and cultural experiences are a great way to continue that and offer it: a way to come together for a shared experience that’s positive and not necessarily related to a credit card charge.

The second value is historical continuity and this is something a number of cities are looking for. Not every city is blessed with as many architectural treasures and neighborhoods as Buffalo is. And that is not necessarily great individual houses, but beautiful neighborhoods here that have a sense of community and place and create a sense of belonging for people who live there. That sense of historical continuity is very much a tool that can be used to sustain identity. The places we build, in many ways, are who we are, good, bad and ugly. It is a palette on which we’ve painted who we were and who we are now.

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