Writers gathering could offer big promotional boost

They’re coming, and they’re bringing their favorite fly rods.

About 800 outdoor writers and photographers will converge in Spokane next week, when the Outdoor Writers Association of America holds its 77th annual convention here. The conference will generate about $900,000 in direct spending. But even more noteworthy, local tourism officials say, is the potential publicity for the area.

“Our members are there for story gathering opportunities,” said Eileen King, OWAA’s meeting planner.

Conference-goers will attend seminars on book contracts and selling freelance pieces. But they’ll also fan out across the region, testing fishing gear on the Spokane River and new styles of firearms at North Idaho’s Farragut State Park.

Association members come from all over the country, with a heavy concentration from the Midwest. The group includes book authors, magazine and newspaper columnists, travel writers, photographers, editors and videographers. The newspaper members alone have a joint readership of 7.5 million, King said.

“You never know who will take off with a story,” said Kevin Rhodes, executive director of the Missoula-based OWAA. “But since many of them make their living that way, it’s a natural assumption.”

While they’re here, members have the option of rafting on the St. Joe River and float trips on the Coeur d’Alene. They can fish for trout near Odessa, Wash., mountain bike the Hiawatha Trail, or visit parts of the national forest still scarred by the massive fires of 1910. The conference runs from June 19 to June 23 at the Spokane Convention Center.

“In other communities that have hosted the conference, the economic impact has been high,” said Mina Gokee, vice president of sales for the Spokane Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau. “They’re all hunters and fisherman…it’s a prestigious group.”

According to King, past OWAA conferences have generated about $50 million in tourist spending for the host state over a 10-year period. That’s based on people reading articles or seeing broadcasts about an area, and coming for a visit, she said.

St. George, Utah, hosted the conference in 2000. “We did receive quite a few articles out of the conference. It was an opportunity to expose our area to a lot of outdoor writers,” said Pam Hilton, marketing director for the St. George Convention and Visitor Bureau

The OWAA last held a conference in Spokane in 1982. Spokane’s CVB made another pitch to the organization 10 years ago.

“It fits so well with our marketing efforts,” Gokee said. “We’ve rebranded ourselves as ‘Near Nature, Near Perfect.’ We’re not Seattle, we’re not Portland. We looked at what we have here, and it’s that access to the outdoors.”

Gokee pitched Spokane to OWAA’s board as the gateway to a region of fishing, boating and other recreational activities. The area also met another conference requirement: It had outdoor shooting ranges. During one day of the conference, Remington and Winchester supply new varieties of firearms for members to test. The shootout at Farragut will also include archery equipment, BB guns and trap shooting.

“This was the first and only time (in 17 years) that I’ve mentioned shooting sites,” Gokee said.

The Lewis and Clark Bicentennial also worked in Spokane’s favor this year. The last two conferences were in Charleston, W.Va., and Columbia, Mo. In honor of the expedition, the conferences started in the east, and moved west.

“The Northwest has this allure for people,” Gokee said. “It’s like the last frontier.”