Three decades of progress

WHAT'S NEXT? Spectators in the Volvo Ocean Race Village watch one of the race boats leave the dock during its 2015 stop in Newport. In 2018, the round-the-globe race will come back to the City By The Sea for its only North American stop. / COURTESY VOLVO OCEAN RACE/CARMEN HIDALGO
WHAT'S NEXT? Spectators in the Volvo Ocean Race Village watch one of the race boats leave the dock during its 2015 stop in Newport. In 2018, the round-the-globe race will come back to the City By The Sea for its only North American stop. / COURTESY VOLVO OCEAN RACE/CARMEN HIDALGO

Editor’s note: In celebration of Providence Business News’ 30th anniversary, staff writers and contributors examined the stories and trends that defined the region’s business scene for the period.
As the ocean has evolved from a commercial transportation asset into a leisure-time facilitator, Rhode Island has kept up with the transition. Thus, while fishing and trade still have a significant presence in Narragansett Bay and along the Ocean State’s Atlantic coast, hospitality and tourism have grown in reputation and importance.

From beaches to the Newport mansions, and more recently Providence’s growing identity as a creative capital, casino gaming, a new national park designation for the Blackstone River Valley and Newport’s success at twice snagging the lone North American stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race, Rhode Island’s economy has a significant stake in tourism’s success.

Gov. Gina M. Raimondo has sought to capitalize on that evolution by dedicating $4.5 million to branding and marketing the state to the rest of the country, if not the world. The initiative was to bring a coordinated effort to support the region’s various tourism groups, something that had not happened in recent memory. But that process stumbled out of the gate when a new state logo and slogan: “Rhode Island: Cooler & Warmer,” as well as an error-marred marketing video, were pilloried from the moment they were unveiled.

Within a week, the newly hired chief marketing officer for the R.I. Commerce Corp., which is overseeing the program, had resigned, and the state said that while it was keeping the new logo, it was abandoning having a statewide slogan. But it was going to go ahead with its multimedia marketing efforts.

- Advertisement -

Meanwhile, the growth of the gaming industry in Rhode Island has been fairly steady since its inception here a little more than two decades ago.

In 1994, slots revenue for Lincoln’s Twin River casino and Newport Grand (then Newport Jai Alai) totaled $27.57 million, with $13.1 million transferred to the state’s general fund. Twenty-one years later, in 2015, the state received approximately $325 million – nearly $285.3 million from Twin River and $27 million from Newport Grand, plus $12.7 million from table games at Twin River, said Paul Grimaldi, spokesman for the state.

The reason for the dramatic difference is largely growth, with more gaming machines and extended hours at Twin River and Newport Grand. But the change also reflects increases in the percentages of revenue going to the state. In 1994, the state received 47 percent of casino revenue, while today it receives slightly more than 60 percent from video-lottery terminals, plus 16 percent of revenue from table games, which were introduced at Twin River in 2013, Grimaldi said.

In recent years, however, Newport Grand has languished as a destination while Massachusetts introduced a slots parlor in Plainville with up to four resort casinos planned. The competition, coupled with continuing competition from Connecticut’s Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun, prompted the owners of Twin River to acquire Newport Grand and propose transferring its license to a new casino it would build in Tiverton. A referendum on the plan is scheduled for the fall of 2016.

Beyond gaming revenue, the hospitality industry is the state’s third largest, according to the state Department of Labor and Training. In 2015 the accommodation and food-services sector, which is also considered by DLT to represent tourism, employed an average of 47,020 workers, accounting for 11.5 percent of the state’s private-sector employment.

One reason for having a robust sector is the late 1993 opening of the R.I. Convention Center. Meeting and convention business was so strong in the Providence/Warwick area in the second half of 2015 that it pushed up demand for rooms for the individual traveler drove up room rates, the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitor’s Bureau said in early 2016.

A number of performance venues with significant impact on hospitality and tourism are located in the capital city. Including the Providence Performing Arts Center, Veterans Memorial Auditorium (also known as The VETS), and the Dunkin’ Donuts Center all improved over the past decade.

The sector has a number of other assets that contribute to its longstanding importance. Founded in 1914, Johnson & Wales University long has attracted would-be chefs, and around it, particularly in Providence, a vibrant restaurant scene has flourished.

The Pawtucket Red Sox also has been a draw during baseball season, and its leadership recently recommitted to staying in Pawtucket after a highly charged proposal to build a stadium and relocate to Providence failed to gain support after its chief proponent, James J. Skeffington, who had been president, died suddenly in May 2015.

In early February 2016, Pawtucket Red Sox Chairman Larry Lucchino told a crowded Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce 25th annual dinner that the team was recommitting itself to creating a hospitable and intimate ballpark experience for fans that is second to none in Triple-A baseball.

But not all growth on the tourism front was welcomed. When the Preservation Society of Newport County proposed building a visitors center on the grounds of the iconic Breakers mansion in Newport, neighborhood and Vanderbilt family members protested, creating a long-running court battle over the project that by the spring was still not resolved. •

No posts to display