{"id":3406,"date":"2014-04-20T11:59:47","date_gmt":"2014-04-20T15:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/?p=3406"},"modified":"2014-04-21T00:00:09","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T04:00:09","slug":"economic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/economic\/","title":{"rendered":"Businesses Expect Business as Usual"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By John Hilliard<\/strong><br \/>\nBU News Service<\/p>\n<p>With just days left before more than 35,000 runners are expected to pass by his door, Brian Peters doesn\u2019t seem worried.<\/p>\n<p>Peters is the general manager at The Pour House, a restaurant just a few blocks from the race\u2019s finish line on Boylston Street. And with thousands of spectators and runners in the neighborhood, he\u2019s expecting an onslaught during Monday\u2019s Boston Marathon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s our busiest day of the year,\u201d said Peters, who has worked Marathon Monday for the past 14 years. \u201cBusier than New Year\u2019s. Busier than St. Patrick\u2019s Day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The marathon\u2019s organizer, the Boston Athletic Association, says more than 35,000 runners are set to start in this year\u2019s race. That\u2019s about 12,000 more participants than the roughly 23,000 who started in the 2013 marathon.<\/p>\n<p>The BAA also expects about 1 million spectators will watch the race along the sidewalks from Hopkinton to Copley Square. Plus, the event is expected to generate record levels of money through race-related business.<\/p>\n<p>The Greater Boston Convention &amp; Visitor\u2019s Bureau estimated that the 2014 race will create nearly $176 million in revenues for businesses and charities \u2013 that\u2019s about $4 million more than the previous record set during the marathon\u2019s centennial race in 1996.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/1IJiFlKZ9QLyYKPTvVTBROHHsDHlOqyb274sBedzDJpY\/pubhtml?widget=true&amp;headers=false\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just bring a ton of people in from across the world, and they tend to stay for a number of days, they fill our hotels, they fill our restaurants, they run and they have a great time,\u201d said Bob Luz, chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s event will be \u201cbusiness as normal for the marathon,\u201d he said, distinguishing Monday\u2019s race with the abbreviated 2013 marathon that was cut short by a pair of bombings and subsequent manhunt that left four people dead and hundreds more injured.<\/p>\n<p>Luz\u2019 group represents about 1,800 members across the state, including 350 in Boston alone. And they\u2019re prepared for the crush of visitors that will descend on the city this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey managed it before, they\u2019ll manage it again. To our membership, this is normal\u2026 they have a strong history of how they manage through this,\u201d said Luz.<\/p>\n<p>To accommodate a larger-than-normal marathon crowd, the MBTA will close the Green Line\u2019s Copley and Arlington stations during the race on Monday, along with stations on South, Kent and St. Mary\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, buses will run on a weekday schedule on Patriot\u2019s Day, said Kelly Smith, an MBTA spokeswoman.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis means that more customers will be able to take bus service, and many will see more frequent service on the holiday,\u201d she wrote in an e-mail.<\/p>\n<p>The Greater Boston Convention &amp; Visitor\u2019s Bureau said that this year\u2019s race will raise a total of $27.5 million in charity fundraising by marathon participants.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The BAA runs a program that organizes charities in conjunction with the marathon. Groups have to apply in advance to participate, and any runner who fundraises for one of these charities have to guarantee a minimum donation.<\/p>\n<p>This year, that specific BAA program includes 30 charities that are expected to raise a combined $13 million, according to the BAA.<\/p>\n<p>The BAA\u2019s fundraising efforts to support itself have also increased over the last several years. BAA revenues grew from about $6.55 million in fiscal 2005 to about $12.5 million in fiscal 2012, the most recent year for which tax records are publicly available.<\/p>\n<p>During that time, the BAA\u2019s profits have more than doubled, from about $800,000 in fiscal 2005 to more than $1.62 million by fiscal 2012. The BAA ended that year with more than $12.6 million in assets &#8212; about $7.6 million more than fiscal 2005, according to those records.<\/p>\n<p>While attention tends to focus on the urban end of the marathon course, the leafy residential towns to the west also stand to benefit from race day.<\/p>\n<p>Marathon weekend visitors will book about 2,000 additional hotel rooms in the area, often with two people in each room, said Susan Nicholl, the executive director of the MetroWest Visitor\u2019s Bureau.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd why that\u2019s important is if you have twice as many people in each room, you have twice as many meals that are going to be bought in that area,\u201d said Nicholl.<\/p>\n<p>Plus, visitors to the suburbs are more likely to drive and spend more money at gas stations and local stores during their stay, she said.<\/p>\n<p>She noted that once the race is over for the western suburbs, spectators will often go to the shopping mall near the Massachusetts Turnpike in Natick. And local businesses adapt to the influx of customers, too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are some bars along the route that aren\u2019t normally open on a Monday at that time of day, and they do a brisk afternoon business,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>On the eastern end of the race course, in Brookline\u2019s Coolidge Corner, Travis Holwerda is gearing up for his first time working on Marathon Monday as a manager at the Upper Crust pizzeria.<\/p>\n<p>Coolidge Corner typically looks like a block party on race days, with local shops setting up barbeques on the sidewalks and live music playing on street corners.<\/p>\n<p>And with all of those potential customers right outside their door, Holwerda said the shop\u2019s staff will be \u201con alert.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNobody gets Marathon Monday off,\u201d said Holwerda.<\/p>\n<p>Back at The Pour House, Peters said they get business from pedestrians along the sidewalk and guests staying at the nearby hotels. And once the race is over, runners join the crowd, some still wrapped in thermal blankets given to them at the race, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey come in, everyone gives them a round of applause,\u201d said Peters.<\/p>\n<p>And someone needs to be behind the bar when they arrive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m not running, I have to be here,\u201d he said, smiling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the wake of last year&#8217;s tragedy, businesses are gearing up for a return to business as usual. The Greater Boston Convention &#038; Visitor\u2019s Bureau estimated that the 2014 race will create nearly $176 million in revenues for businesses and charities. Story by John Hilliard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[19],"coauthors":[13],"class_list":["post-3406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-businesses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3406"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4133,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions\/4133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3406"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bunewsservice.com\/marathon2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}