Madison Aument: For 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument and this is Economics IE. The Tour de Big Bear is happening July 31st through August 2 and it’s projected to be the biggest in the event's 16 year history. I spoke to Holly Colson, who is in charge of marketing for the event, to discuss the economic impact of a large sports event on a small city like Big Bear.
I mean, it sounds like it's going to be a big event. Participation is going to be up more than 15% from last year.
Holly Colson: Yeah, so that's actually projected. We grew 15% in 2025 registration, so that's participant registration year over year. We do a lot of measuring, so we do a post-event survey. We actually do have our approximate economic impact. We ask a lot of questions when we send out the post-event survey about why they came to the event, whether they extended the length of their trip, how many people came, and how much they estimated they spent on lodging, food, souvenirs and things while they were here. So we do analyze some things, and it's largely because we work with Visit Big Bear as one of our chief supporters and a presenting sponsor. They provide us some wonderful grant funding to help promote tourism. So it's really important to us to understand what those participation numbers look like.
Madison Aument: Since these are projected numbers, maybe we should look back at 2025. What were some of those findings?
Holly Colson: So we had people from 38 states come to participate. Ninety-eight percent of our athletes last year were nonlocal. That's coming from 38 states and seven countries. On average, they stay three nights in Big Bear. Learning about their accommodations, the budgets they spent on food, souvenirs and transportation, and the number of days of their trips resulted in an approximate economic impact of $4.8 million.
Madison Aument: Can you just talk about how a big event like this kind of benefits the whole community?
Holly Colson: You know, one of the things I think is a good example of how it benefits the community would be that we work with our lodging partners. We added this year a special lodging partner discount page. So we send out to all of our audience that we have special discounts available for staying in Big Bear, and we work with our lodging partners to set that up, and we help promote that. This is something so people will come and stay in Big Bear. Maybe they hadn't considered it before, but they can find out about lodging that they hadn't known of previously.
So that's just one way. Working with the businesses in Big Bear Village, we give away craniosacral massages as one of the things that we had in our giveaway this year, and so that gets sent out to all of our audience that this is something really cool that you can come and do in Big Bear.
Going to Big Bear Village, we've been working with the chamber. We do a digital scavenger hunt, so anyone can participate in the digital scavenger hunt. We work with the chamber to put that on and promote it to all of our athletes and all of their families and supporters. They visit different businesses in Big Bear, get special offers and win special prizes just by logging in and going from business to business and visiting them. You do different things when you get there, whatever the scavenger hunt requires you to do.
So that's another way. We have free rides on Friday night, and there's a poker ride. It's a mountain bike ride that people can participate in, as well as a glow ride where families — everyone's invited, all bike types and all bike levels — can decorate their bikes with lights and ride around our course and be entertained, as well as enter to win a prize for the best-decorated bike.
So there are a lot of things going on that are definitely celebrating the bicycle, but you don't have to actually be a rider to participate. Again, there's live music. There's lots of fun things to do off the bike and on the bike.
Madison Aument: Is there anything else you want to add?
Holly Colson: We do support the local schools, youth programs and nonprofit organizations. So extending outside of the weekend and educating and spreading the love, I guess, is probably the best thing to encourage people to come and visit Big Bear and see it and be a part of everything that's going on. And then again, maybe they'll come back when it's not an event, or they want to come see what Big Bear's like in the fall.
Madison Aument: Thanks for listening to this episode of Economics IE. This segment is supported by the Nowak Family. For KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument.
