Tuesday’s teleconference with United States Bowling Congress officials left Wichita leaders with a go-ahead to rebid for the 2011 Open Championships. That’s a “maybe” rather than an “all is forgiven.” But it’s a great development considering the May heartbreak of the city’s loss of the 2011 tournament, which will bring an estimated $100 million and 60,000 to 80,000 bowlers to any host city. It means whatever Wichita did wasn’t fatal to its potential to host future Bowling Congress events. Now, leaders with the city and the Greater Wichita Convention and Visitors Bureau need to take full advantage of the second chance, being as accommodating as possible and making their rebid an offer too good to refuse.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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14 Comments
I always thought of Wichita as a Bowling town because of the tournaments held here and the number of bowling lanes.
Having watch some pro bowlers I thought to myself “how can they do that so consistently?” I then reminded myself that’s why they are “Pro” Bowlers.
The interesting thing about bowling is that anyone with practice can get quite proficient at bowling. The art and science of bowling is readily available and it seems to me that every bowling lanes I go to, the people that run the “pro” shops are more than willing to explain techniques as well as gear.
This spread of information has an advantage even over the popular game of golf as bowling is a less expensive sport to become involved in, so many more average “joes” and “josephines” play the game.
This is probably also a reason why the ire of many were raised when the first attempt by the City of Wichita failed to coax the Bowling Congress to Wichita for the 2011 tournament. The informed public knows that Wichita’s best hospitality hand was not put forth and whomever the planners were involved in attending to extending this hospitality threw a very loud and noticeable gutter ball.
Since it appears that Wichita did not toe over the “foul line” there may be a second chance at getting the Pros and the Bowling Congress to Wichita.
As they say in bowling, take a deep breath, concentrate and make a smooth focused delivery.
Kansas: Good comments about merits of bowling in Wichita. Although not a bowler, I did try my hand at being a “pin setter” as a young teen in Pratt.
I too have the impression that Wichita was a prime bowling city back in World War II days to serve aircraft workers who worked around the clock building Boeing’s B-29’s. I have the image of “Rosie the Riveters” and “William the Welders” getting off work at 5 AM and going to a bowling alley to roll a few to end their workday.
In any case, I understand the sport of bowling is rapidly growing world-wide for many reasons mostly having to do with world wide demographics.
So I have suggested via this WE Blog that WICHITA BUILD A STATE OF THE ART BOWLING CENTER WITH ALL THE BELLS, WHISTLES, NEON AND GLITZ WITH A WORLD WAR II THEME.The perfect site would be along the Arkansas River either side.
This should be coordinated with local bowling alley owners.
It would replace the proposed $300,000,000.15 white elephant downtown arena being built for ice hockey fans. Can anyone imagine the arena stupidity?
I believe this International Bowling Center would bring in tourists from all over the world: Europe, Canada, Japan, China, Middle East, Hawaii … making Wichita a truly international city.
It’s my understanding that Las Vegas has the top bowling center in the world and attracts the Bowling Association’s bowling convention once every three years. Perhaps Wichita could attract that convention in an alternate year … or organize its own international bowling convention. Its a big world out there.
An arena will be lucky to draw fans from as far as Newton and Wellington … for sure not from Pratt, Gt. Bend or the fabled little Catholic crossroads of St. Leo. But a glitzy international bowling center next to the Arkansas River could draw millions of visitors from all over the world.
I can tell you exactly why the bowling tournament organizers withdrew Wichita from consideration for holding the proposed tournament. It happened just a couple of days after the Greensberg tornado.
UNFORTUNATE FACT: Those living outside of Kansas think we have tornados at least once a week in the summer. Those “in the know” at tournament headquarters are absolutley sure that any venue Wichita might provide is certain to be blown away during the tournament.
“The Wizard of Oz” is the worst public relations nightmare ever foisted off on the people of Kansas. Not only is Kansas all BLACK AND WHITE, we have all sorts of odd characters. Welllll… that part might be true.
Yep! You’re right Charles. Kansas ranks number 50 in the number of tourist coming into the state.
Basically it ranks dead last as a tourist state.
And, Joe, will continue to be so long as the attitude of those from other states is “Kansas; oh, yeah, that state I have to drive through to get to Colorado”. (Quote from an acquaintance of mine in Indiana met while I was in the Air Force)
In today’s world of tourism, Kansas would rank last. My family has lived in many regions of the country in the past 25 years due to my company transfers. My first transfer was to Chanute. Now there is a quaint little town, nice good people but very little to do in way of tourism. We used to drive to Wichita for something exciting to do with the kids.
Even Wichita didn’t have not much at that time. Our last transfer was back to Wichita. It seems like not much has progressed since 25 years ago.
And I don’t think people outside of Kansas think there is a tornado every week like in the Oz movie, as some poster stated.
But I do know that Kansas has not developed a tourism idea that will work. First of all, your roads are not that great, you have a toll road with rather high costs and it takes a long time just to drive to get to another town or city that has nothing to offer.
No one from outside of Kansas is going to drive hundreds of miles to see just one thing. There needs to be a destination theme with several things to see once the people arrive.
Kansas is known to be a nice state to live and raise your kids in. the only problem with that is – once the kids are grown, the kids usually move away to find decent work. This is especially true in the smaller towns likeChanute.
I was in Chanute yesterday.
“No one from outside of Kansas is going to drive hundreds of miles to see just one thing. There needs to be a destination theme with several things to see once the people arrive.”
The trend in tourism is not to “see” things but to DO things. Kansas is still whining and working on things to see while the rest of the tourism world has moved into the experiential with doing things.
Kansas… set your watch back 50 years when you cross the boarder.
Oh, and the other trend in tourism?
Authenticity.
Folks would rather do real things than “experience” fake things. Maybe that shoulda been a clue for WWW. The chuckwagon thing is a semi-authentic experience.
A theme park is not.
Maybe the Arena crowd can find a way to use that to attract tie bowlers. After all, it will be brand new and should be perfect!
Beg to differ with you ksfrmgrl but if people want to do real things rather than to ‘experience’ fake things – then Cowtown would be a booming success! Last time I checked, Cowtown was a ghost town.
I’ve never been to Cowtown, so I’m not qualified to say. But I do have a question about Cowtown. How much is there “to do” and how much is there “to see”?
They might be turning around. When I went to Botanica a few weeks ago, Cowtown was packed and you could hear the guns firing off on the simulated gun shoot-outs.
Cowtowns problem is that they were always open all the time. I think now they have reduced hours, open on weekends only.
“Yep! You’re right Charles. Kansas ranks number 50 in the number of tourist coming into the state.
Basically it ranks dead last as a tourist state.
Posted by: Joe Williams | July 19, 2007 at 08:38 AM ”
Joe that can’t be good for a casino —