For much of 2012, local political and business officials boasted about the impact that hosting the Republican National Convention would have on Tampa and the region not just directly, but for years, and even decades to come.
"I think when we look back 10 years, 20 years from now, they will say this is where Tampa turned the corner, we had our introduction to the world stage and we danced like we never danced before," Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn told a business audience this past summer.
Only time will tell if the mayor's thoughts will pan out, but a new survey shows that after the convention, there was an 18 percent increase in positive perception of the Tampa Bay area. The survey interviewed 1,200 delegates, attendees and reporters, most of whom had little to no knowledge about the area before the RNC.
The survey was conducted by the San Diego-based Market Enhancement Group and done on behalf of the Tampa Bay Partnership, which held a press conference at its Westshore area headquarters on Tuesday morning to present the survey.
This article appears in Nov 8-14, 2012.