Summit of the Eight provides PR bonanza

DENVER – As the Colorado International Trade Office sees it, the Denver Summit of the Eight, June 20-22, will “put Colorado on the map. It’s the best public relations we could ask for.”

Karen Gerwitz, chief of protocol for the Colorado Trade Office, also said that this 23rd annual meeting of world leaders will give international companies a good feel for what it’s like to do business in Colorado.

The three-day event is expected to bring world leaders and thousands of media representatives into the city, and to cost the federal and state government more than $10 million. The Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates that the summit will be worth $13.8 million to Denver’s economy in direct spending.

The profit difference is only a few million, but Andrew Hudson, press secretary for Denver mayor Wellington Webb, said that “the summit is not designed as financial gain for the city. That amount of spending doesn’t include what the city will receive as free publicity.” Washington and Webb’s office are coordinating the summit.

Beginning June 19, Broadway and other downtown streets will be closed and will remain blocked when President Bill Clinton arrives at the Brown Palace Hotel. He will be joined by leaders from an economic bloc of the world’s industrialized nations that includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Canada, Germany and France.

Delegations from the Russian Federation were added to the Denver Summit of the Eight, although Russia isn’t actually considered one of the world’s top industrialized nations. Russia was invited by Clinton to take a more active role due to the country’s recent “economic efforts,” Hudson said.

Trade agreements are a common topic of economic summits, but past summits have broadened their scope to focus on calls for peace in Bosnia, support for political and economic reforms in central and eastern European nations, and the condemnation of political repression in China.

Most summit events are private, and what the delegates will discuss hasn’t been disclosed. Events will include leaders’ meetings, spousal events, leaders’ dinners at the Phipps House in Denver and meetings of finance and foreign ministers.

The Museum of Natural History first was proposed as the setting for the leaders’ meeting, but the idea was discarded due to the cost of preparing the site. The Denver Central Library will be used instead.

Summit officials said they will be paying a lot of attention to visiting journalists. The trade office is predicting the arrival of approximately 8,000 Denver summit visitors – more than half of them representing the media. The Colorado Convention Center will be reserved as a kind of office from which the thousands of expected visiting journalists can report on events of the summit. The trade office has selected Colorado companies to highlight in press releases that will be distributed to international journalists covering the summit, Gerwitz said.

“We are determined to use this opportunity to provide them with story ideas about Colorado businesses, about Denver International Airport, as well as the economic resurgence of our state,” Gerwitz added.

Funding for the Denver summit is expected to come from involved local, state and federal governments.

In addition to Clinton, other VIPs expected include President Jacques Chirac of France, Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany, Prime Minister Tony Blair of England, Prime Minister Jean Cretien of Canada, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto of Japan, Prime Minister Romano Prodi of Italy and the Russian Federation delegation.

The European Commission, the United Nations and the World Bank will participate as observing members.

The World Trade Center is planning events in conjunction with the summit that are open to the public. A black-tie dinner featuring Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers as keynote speaker takes place June 10. The next day, the World Trade Center hosts three panel sessions. The first will bring together ambassadors from the G-7 nations’ economic councils; the second will be chaired by former Sen. Gary Hart, bringing together authors who have written books on the importance of globalization in the 21st century; the third panel will be made up of Colorado CEOs who practice business globally.

“We hope to focus on G-7 countries, possibly having them address issues covered in the summit, before the summit,´ said Jim Reis, World Trade Center president and CEO. “We always hear the United States’ side of trade issues. We want to let those living in the Rocky Mountain region hear what the other guys are thinking, too.”

He said the World Trade Center will also be helping the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce translate an informational overview of the Front Range. The program will be put on CD-ROM and given to the delegates, he said.

Colorado businesses that will see one of the first clear benefits from the summit are Denver hotels. The Oklahoma City bombing trial and the summit have combined to make the month of June an especially difficult month to find a vacancy.

Business owners, even those concerned with international markets, don’t expect to see any immediate changes, related to the summit, in the way they do business.

“I think it draws attention to Colorado, which is good, I guess,´ said Jim Wilson of Quantum International of Longmont.

Quantum helps businesses find new markets, or shows U.S. companies how to conduct business internationally.

“I don’t think any clear resolutions come out of the summits,” Wilson said. “It’s mostly directional, or policy, and takes a long time to benefit.”

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