Art Fair Energizes Economy of Region

If you're looking to invigorate a community's economy and social life, bringing in tens of thousands of well-to-do, art-loving out-of-towners for a long weekend isn't a bad way to start. That, more or less, happens each year at Art Basel in Miami Beach, and the results have been impressive.

The fair provides a healthy injection of cash to the local economy ahead of the vacation season that starts after Christmas. It's unclear how many of the 75,000 Art Basel visitors come from outside the area, but the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau calculates that hotel occupancy rises by 30,000 on the days the fair is in progress, enough to take it from the 75 percent level typical for early December to nearly 100 percent throughout Dade County, the wider jurisdiction that Miami dominates.

Based on estimates of average expenditure for rooms, meals and other elements of a fun holiday, plus the higher prices that hotels can command when demand is strong, the fair brings close to $13 million a year to the region, assuming that those who attend are just like ordinary tourists. But they are not.

Local officials are fond of saying that more private jets are used to bring visitors to Art Basel than to the Super Bowl, the gaudy, glitzy championship of American football. Any crude spending figure tied directly to the fair has to be bumped up to account for the higher-end products and services that well-off visitors consume, along with purchases of artworks, some of which fetch millions of dollars.

'It's priceless business for us,' said William D. Talbert III, chief executive of the Convention & Visitors Bureau. 'Before Art Basel, you never had art, business and billionaires in the same sentence' spoken about Miami.

Fredric Snitzer, who came to Miami and opened his Fredric Snitzer Gallery in 1977, agreed that 'the impact that Art Basel has had over the years has been significant financially; it has impacted the community in every possible way.'

As big a boost as the influx of wealthy people provides to South Florida during the five days of the annual fair, the intangible impact has been far more substantial and persistent, civic officials and others say. The influence extends beyond the convention center that houses the event and lingers for the other 360 days of the year.

'It's about the brand, the impact of this show,' Mr. Talbert said. ' Art Basel Miami Beach is a singular event that points out that Miami is a world-class community, a destination for art collectors and for buying and selling art. Before Art Basel, we weren't on that radar screen at all.' But now that collectors have a fix on Miami, they and other culture aficionados are coming throughout the year, and for some of them, it's a one-way trip.

'What Art Basel has done for Miami is to attract two different kinds of customer: the high-end customer who likes very expensive art and what we call the 'creative class,' mostly younger people who like to live in and visit cities that have everything,' said Arun Sharma, a professor of marketing at the University of Miami. 'The others come and go. The members of the creative class are the ones that come and stay.'

The Midtown neighborhood, an enclave of restaurants, galleries and high-end shops, is a focal point for this creative class. It had been a rundown area, Mr. Sharma noted, and that made rents low enough for entrepreneurs, eager to capture the city's evolving zeitgeist.

Once they did, Midtown became a magnet for locals of a hip, cultural bent and eventually for similar people from outside South Florida. 'High-end art buyers come and buy art and leave, but they leave behind the environment for culture to flourish,' Mr. Sharma said. 'Could it have been independently created without Art Basel? I'm not sure, but it was created by Art Basel.'

Rich collectors may leave, but some have a home to go to when they are back in town. A concrete - literally, in some cases - economic benefit of Art Basel and Miami's cultural development is a boom in high-end real estate.

'Condo construction has been just extraordinary,' Mr. Talbert said. 'Luxury condo developers have booths and sales efforts near the show. When folks are here, they buy luxury condominiums as a second, third or fourth home. They see Miami as a destination that's both tropical and cosmopolitan.'

Jessica Katz, head of the Miami office of the auction house Christie's, identified a virtuous circle. The city's growing sophistication fostered the development of areas like Midtown, the adjacent Design District and Wynwood District; their presence is attracting new visitors, and this group is leading to further artistic endeavors.

'Demographics and behavior have shifted,' she said. 'Miami used to be more of a beach destination, but it has become such a year-round cultural destination with world-class museums. People would come for a week and then leave. Now they can make a longer trip out of it.'

As for Art Basel's role in this, Ms. Katz said, 'I don't know if it's the chicken or the egg, but the fair has been a catalyst for that growth. Miami has always had art galleries, but a lot of them represented primarily local artists. Now there are top-tier galleries opening offices and spaces here and transacting in blue-chip art based here in Miami.'

But some Miami artists complain that they have largely been passed by as the influence of Art Basel has expanded. Mr. Snitzer acknowledged that while the impact of the fair has been substantially positive, collectors' anticipation of it has created several months of listlessness in the market each year.

'Art Basel gave us huge international exposure, but now we have to compete with 240 of the best galleries in the world four days a year,' he said. The attitude of collectors seems to be, ''If we're coming to Miami any time from August on, why not wait until Art Basel?'' he said.

Obviously there was art in Miami before Art Basel, and there was enough of it - and enough high-end collectors - to persuade the Swiss organization to choose Miami Beach when it decided to add a winter fair. 'Part of the genius of Art Basel is that they realized that Miami was in resurgence before anyone else did,' said Michael Spring, director of the Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. 'The Swiss realized there was a dynamic cultural and arts scene that they could hitch their wagon to.'

The wagon has grown substantially since then. Arts organizations in the region employ 30,000 people and generate $1.1 billion in annual revenue, he said.

Part of Mr. Spring's job is to cultivate an appreciation for the arts among home-grown Floridians, especially young ones, not just transplants and tourists. The Dade County Cultural Passport program requires children in all grades to engage in cultural activity (they get a passport stamp for each one), and Culture Shock Miami provides high school and college students access to $5 tickets for arts events.

'Art Basel helped convey that there's a cultural depth to Miami,' he said. 'As all of this flash and glamour is occurring, we're building a foundation underneath it to sustain it for generations.'

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