With delusions of sorting to some marginal level of organization floating about in my mind, I was looking through some of the thousands of “bird, lep, and ode” images that are beginning to turn my laptop into a maze of files and sub-files when I found this image of a Band-winged Dragonlet, Erythrodiplax umbrata, that I captured while on a birding festival field trip down in the Rio Grande Valley back in 2004.
I found it ironic that I should have fixated on this particular image as just shortly after I found it an e-mail arrived from my good friend Liz over at Blue Lizard Birding Blog. She wanted to bring my attention to an article she had noted in the Valley Morning Star newspaper – “The Birding Factor: Festival by the numbers” by Daisy Martinez.
Right here and now, before I get up a good head of steam to power a full-speed rant, I’d like to apologize to Ms. Martinez if I have misinterpreted her article in a way that has led me to my understanding of its purpose. The gist of the article was that to some, using one interpretation of the pre-registration records, it seems that the attendance numbers at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, held annually for the past fourteen years in Harlingen, Texas, are declining. The larger purpose of the article was a bit less clear. Reading it, I got the impression that I was supposed to infer some sinister and frivolous waste of the tax monies raised from the resident population of Harlingen by the festival organizers. “The City of Harlingen has contributed $139,000 to the festival over the past eight years, records show” writes Ms. Martinez. (Keep in mind that this equates to an average contribution of just over $17,000 annualy.) The article continues, “According to records for the 14th annual festival held in November, 527 people preregistered for the event. In 2000, 721 participants preregistered.”
Thats the trouble with pre-registration numbers and birding festivals – they really don’t tell the whole story and can easily give a mistaken impression of the true participation in the event or the full extent of its importance. Many attendees of birding and other types of nature festivals do not register in advance. Some are traveling more extensively and schedule these events into their itineraries. Others are from areas close enough to be travelled to and from by automobile and thus simply make a week-end of festivals. Of course, the preregistration numbers do not even begin to reflect the attendance from the immediate area itself, especially the army of local school children who visit the festival each year to participate in the chamber of commerce and vendor sponsored nature education activities.
Frankly, the first thing I could think of was “wow, eight years of the most well-known birding festival in North America was only supported by the principal beneficiary, the city of Harlingen itself, at an annual average rate of just over $17,000 per year. If, in fact 1,000 people attend this event each year, and as a former corporate trade show exhibitor there I can readily attest that the attendance certainly seemed higher than 1,000 people over the course of each festival (I shipped 500 give-away tote bags to one year’s event and they all were gone half way through the second day of the festival, even before the week-end heavy traffic days), then the Harlingen municipal government succeeded in bringing international attention to their south Texas city for just over $17.00 per person. I would think that nearly anyone involved in the marketing of a destination location to potential travelers would be thrilled with such a cost-to-success ratio.
Sadly, I get the impression that there are some who are unhappy with this. Is it an anti-tax issue? If the city did not contribute to the festival, perhaps taxes would be lower? However the numbers don’t compute because each major optics company likely spends over $20,000 each year setting up and staffing their exhibits at the event. This is money that ends up largely on the balance sheets of the local hotels and restaurants, the car rental companies and gas stations. (I do note in the article that the local hoteliers interviewed indicated only a few of their rooms were let to bird watchers during the festival; I dispute the accuracy of this as I have attended south valley festivals for most of the past ten years and not once has anyone ever asked me when reserving or checking into a room why I was visiting the area.) If this money was not generated by the festival, it would need to be generated in some other way, a way perhaps more costly to the city government in the end.
Quite frankly, I am perplexed. The people who organize the festival are some of the most dedicated, hard-working, great-hearted people it has ever been my pleasure to meet. Father Tom, Jan, Terri, Beto, and all the rest – they formed my impression of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, and to be honest, were it not for them and the festival, I would likely have never traveled there or recommended that the company expend marketing dollars in that geographic region to the extent that I did.
In the article, Ms. Martinez quotes Terri Bortness, chairperson of the 2007 event, as indicating “the majority of the money to hold the festival comes from participant registration fees, vendor booth fees and corporate sponsorships.” Very true indeed – I personally, as the former leader of a market development team for a major product manufacturing firm, have directed well over $100,000 toward the local Harlingen economy over the past decade – a large portion in exactly this capacity. As there were many firms larger than the one for whom I worked, who sent more staff and made larger contributions to the local causes and projects promoted by the event, I know that my own economic contributions were by no means the largest each year. To those who might hold the idea that the municipal support of the festival is excessive or unneeded, I would ask what they might propose in its place that would generate that type of cash flowing into the south valley from not only outside communities within Texas but from other states and even other nations that could be obtained for a $17,000 annual expenditure?
Ecotourism, such as that promoted by the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, has put Harlingen on the map for travelers from around the world. There’s no theme park (that I know of, at least), no five diamond resorts, and no restaurants with three Michelin stars. There are a lot of friendly people, good honest food and lodging establishments, and wildlife at a level of concentration found nowhere else in on dry land in the U.S. or Canada. For this, bird watchers and nature nuts of assorted varieties, as well as photographers both amateur and professional will spend thousands of dollars each to travel there, repeatedly. Then go home and tell their friends to visit as well. As I will do here and now – if you have never been to the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, or even if you have, plan your trip for the 2008 event now. The Band-winged Dragonlets are waiting.
Peace and good bird watching.
