State-Journal.com - City plans to show off hospitality

The Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Lexington are 942 days away and Frankfort tourism officials are planning for its projected $150 million statewide economic impact.

More than 600,000 spectators are expected to attend the 16-day competition at the Kentucky Horse Park from Sept. 25 to Oct. 10 in 2010.

The games are held every four years and 2010 will be the first time they'll be held outside of Europe.

"I'm not sure Kentucky fully realizes yet that the world is coming here," said Joy Jeffries, executive director of the Frankfort/Franklin County Tourist Commission, in last week's regular monthly meeting.

"We are all going to look really good or we're going to blow it. And Frankfort is not going to blow it."
A tour group of 150 from Australia has already reserved 85 hotel rooms in Frankfort for three weeks, Jeffries said.

"Their tour leader came and spent three days here last summer, and she has taken people to World Equestrian Games two or three times," Jeffries said.

"Lexington knows they can't handle this all by themselves. They've said that all along. We're working as a region, which is great. Our local hotel folks have caught the message that they really need to be involved."

She expects Frankfort's hotels to be full longer than the 16-day event, and restaurants to be busy.

"Visitors are going to be coming early and staying late," she said. "Unlike the way we take vacations, people in Europe take six to eight-week vacations. They know how to take a vacation or holiday."
Kentuckians are naturally hospitable, Jeffries said. "And to me, the most exciting thing is that we have an opportunity to show our Kentucky hospitality to the world," she said. "That's the best advertising we could ever get, and it could ripple out for at least a decade."

Local garden clubs will be working "to spruce up all of our public space, particularly all the entrances into Frankfort," Jeffries said. "We all would like to have a prettier state and capital city and I'm thrilled to death we have this excuse with a deadline." A lot of floral plantings will need to be done in the next six months to be mature by 2010, she said.

One part of beautification plans is to get the Singing Bridge repainted, Jeffries said.
In the entertainment area, the downtown Grand Theatre on St. Clair and West Main is undergoing a $3 million renovation. When completed in the summer of 2009, it will be a 414-seat community arts center.

"We will be a venue for Alltech's Fortnight Festival in Fall 2009 and in 2010 for the festival during the games and in years thereafter," said Bill Cull, president of the Grand Theatre. "Centre College and its Norton Center for the Arts manage the festival's bookings.

"We are looking at performers like Steve Tyrell, Melissa Manchester, Taj Mahal and KebMo for 2009 and hope to explore possibilities of Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison or Norah Jones for the games year, to name only a few. Other suggestions are welcomed. We hope to show Kentucky's visitors the charm of Frankfort's downtown and help build tourism while enriching our own lives through the arts."

City Commissioner Doug Howard, a member of a local task force making plans for Frankfort's role in the games, said he'd love to see a passenger train from Lexington to Frankfort for the games.

"Europeans are so used to hopping on a train," he said.

The 2010 games will be the world championships of eight equestrian disciplines recognized by the Fdration Equestre Internationale.