A state official defending first lady Mary Easley’s foreign travel implied that a recent art exhibit generated a $20 million economic impact to the state. The net economic impact to the state calculated by Carolina Journal actually totaled less than $4 million.
Department of Cultural Resources Deputy Secretary Staci Meyer said the N.C. Art Museum’s Monet exhibit had an economic impact of $20 million, according to recent news reports by WRAL-TV and The News & Observer of Raleigh. In justifying the “$50,000 or $60,000” in state expenditures for Mrs. Easley’s trip, Meyer’s implication was that the state derived a $20 million net impact from the exhibit.
Mrs. Easley’s trip occurred more than five months after the exhibit ended. Mrs. Easley’s trip to France, and another to Russia and Estonia in 2008, cost taxpayers $109,000, according to The News & Observer. Both trips were cultural missions arranged by Meyer’s department.
“What do you believe was the net economic impact to the State of North Carolina (not Wake County) from the Monet exhibit?” CJ asked Meyer by e-mail.
“I don’t have any personal knowledge about the economic impact from the Monet. I relied upon the information that I obtained from the Museum of Art compiled by the Raleigh CVB (Convention Visitors Bureau). I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful but it’s not a determination that I made. I cannot explain how they made the determination,” Meyer said.
In January 2007 the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau reported that the Monet exhibition at the museum injected almost $24.3 million into Wake County’s economy. The exhibit ran from Oct. 15, 2006, to Jan. 14, 2007.
The bureau provided CJ with the assumptions and methodology used to estimate the economic impact of the exhibit. The assumptions included a $40-per-person expenditure for Triangle residents visiting the exhibit and from $95 to $231 per person for those outside the Triangle.
When told about Meyer’s statement, bureau President Dennis Edwards said that his organization’s estimate applied to Wake County only and that it could not be used to estimate the economic impact to the state. He said that the net economic impact to the state would probably include only expenditures made by those coming from destinations outside North Carolina.
The museum’s assistant marketing manager, Alesia DiCosola, said that based on zip codes captured during ticket sales, “we had about 27,000 to 28,000 visitors from outside of N.C.”
Using a figure of 27,500, out-of-state visitors accounted for 12.8 percent of the 214,177 total visitors. Using the bureau’s expenditure estimates and methodology, CJ calculated that gross expenditures from visitors outside North Carolina would be $3.8 million.
View the assumptions and calculations provided by bureau.
Don Carrington is executive editor of Carolina Journal.