Sat
Dec 20 2008
07:40 am
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Tourism
By: tennesseevalues...

Knoxville-area tourism took a major hit as American Honda announced its plans to cancel the 2009 Honda Hoot because of the current economy.

The text on the official Honda Hoot web site doesn't give me confidence that the Hoot is ever coming back and that this is merely a one-year hiatus.

Topics:
bizgrrl's picture

Yes, the news is spreading

Submitted by bizgrrl on Sat, 2008/12/20 - 8:01am.

Yes, the news is spreading like wildfire.

Based on the current economic crunch which may have significant impact on our customers during 2009, American Honda will take this time to seek out new and innovative ways to engage with our customers so that we can continue to ride together.

As an alternative, check out Bike Week in Daytona Beach. As of right now anyway, they're still holding festivities.

American Honda is also withdrawing from the 2009 AMA Roadracing Series.

Auto manufacturers are cutting back on NASCAR spending as well. Terry Blount, ESPN, states: "But NASCAR's survival isn't dependent on the Big Three automakers."

We'll survive the demise of the Honda Hoot. Would the South survive without NASCAR?

MDB's picture

Experiment?

Submitted by MDB on Sat, 2008/12/20 - 8:48am.

Would the South survive without NASCAR?

I'm willing to try to find out.

Remember what NASCAR stands for: Not A Sport Calling All Rednecks

"I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat." -- Will Rogers

Mello's picture

we can't make it here any more

Submitted by Mello on Sat, 2008/12/20 - 9:55am.

Honda ended the "Homecoming" this year after they announced they were closing the Marysville motorcycle plant. Ending the Hoot comes as no surprise.

CE Petro's picture

Unfortunately, this is going

Submitted by CE Petro on Sat, 2008/12/20 - 10:32am.

Unfortunately, this is going to snowball down through the other motorcycle companies. Too damn bad, too, as my youngest son starts his first season in the Superbikes roadracing this February (with WERA Southeast region.

Funny, though, that American Honda quickly changed their stance from earlier this month.

In other Superbike news, Ducati is not fielding a team in the British Superbike Championship.

Factchecker's picture

Shut it down?

Submitted by Factchecker on Sat, 2008/12/20 - 11:39am.

Apparently NASCAR is on hard times. I wouldn't have known, but it wouldn't bother me to see it go.

rocketsquirrel's picture

We saw Gloria Ray at a store

Submitted by rocketsquirrel on Sat, 2008/12/20 - 12:02pm.

We saw Gloria Ray at a store checkout last week. She seemed pretty upbeat, and we chatted about the number of conferences that the tourism and sports corp had booked. She indicated that we were in pretty good shape through 2011. Granted, the Hoot is a big loss, but there are a lot of small conferences that fly under the radar of the media and are equally important to large events.

tennesseevaluesauthority's picture

Granted, the Hoot is a big

Submitted by tennesseevalues... on Sat, 2008/12/20 - 1:15pm.

Granted, the Hoot is a big loss, but there are a lot of small conferences that fly under the radar of the media and are equally important to large events.

That's partially correct, but it will be worth watching how the economy affects these smaller conferences, too.

The Honda Hoot, unlike the smaller conferences, represents a pretty good bit of business for the area's hotels and restaurants. The outlying suburban hotels and the downtown Marriott will take a significant hit for losing this bit of business in mid-June. Some hotels will be affected differently than others.

Having worked in the tourism industry for the past twelve years, I imagine that on Monday many of the hotels will be scrambling to line up baseball tournaments and other smaller events that they turned away when they had blocked out rooms for the Hoot.

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

TN Progressive

TN Politics

Knox TN Today

Local TV News

News Sentinel

    State News

    Wire Reports

    Lost Medicaid Funding

    To date, the failure to expand Medicaid/TennCare has cost the State of Tennessee ? in lost federal funding. (Source)

    Search and Archives