BiG Cruise Tourism Highlight for Week
By Robyn L. Minor, The Daily News, Bowling Green, Ky.
Jul. 15–Some Bowling Green tourism events this week will focus on cars.
New to the calendar this year is the BiG Cruise on Friday and Saturday, according to Duncan Hines, sales manager for the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Hines told the CVB at its meeting Monday that the cruise was modeled after one in Somerset and should help lure hot rodders and others to Bowling Green between the summer and fall major hot rod events at Beech Bend Park.
Started locally by Janet Henderson and other interested hot rodders, “It is something that is going to build up,” Hines said.
Friday night’s activities will be from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Fairview Shopping Center and Saturday’s events will be from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Western Kentucky University’s Research and Development Center at the corner of Nashville Road and Campbell Lane.
There will be cornhole tournaments, vendors and other free activities at both sites.
The event is for cars 25 or older. Other BiG Cruises are planned for Aug. 15-16 and Sept. 19-20.
There is no age limit on the vehicles at the other car event — the National Corvette Homecoming that will be Friday through Sunday at Sloan Convention Center and elsewhere.
Prior to homecoming, the American Red Cross is having its fundraising project, Vettetastic. There is a preview party from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday at the convention center with music provided by Skip Bond and the Fugitives with a special guest appearance Stan Snodgrass as Elvis. Tickets are $35 a person or $60 a couple. Food will be available and there will be a cash bar.
Six miniature corvettes will be auctioned from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the convention center as part of the fundraiser.
During homecoming there will be car shows, seminars, vendors and numerous other activities.
In other matters, CVB director Vicki Fitch told the board that May’s room occupancy was down 2.8 percent from the previous year, according to Smith Travel Research.
“There were a lot of other places that were down a lot more,” she said.
Many of those comparables are out of state, but in Kentucky, for instance, Daviess County was down 4.8 percent for the same month.
For the year, room revenues were up about 9 percent in Warren County.
That corresponds closely to tourism-related numbers released this week by the Kentucky Department of Travel.
Tourism in Warren County was up by 9.3 percent in 2007, according to an annual report compiled by the Travel Industry Association in Washington, D.C. Statewide, there was a 6.5 percent increase.
The state estimates that in 2006 there were $273,920,512 tourism-related dollars spent in Warren County. That jumped to $299,494,221 in 2007. Statewide direct spending went from $6.81 billion to $7.25 billion.
— For more information about BiG Cruises, call 991-9158 . For more information about the National Corvette Homecoming, call 791-2117. For more information about Vettetastic, call 781-7377.
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