People now have plenty of reasons for coming here

There was a time -- a long time, actually -- when geography was a nagging Columbus economic problem. The Chattahoochee had long since ceased to be a major transportation corridor. Columbus wasn't really on the way to anywhere, and when the city was initially left off the Interstate highway system, the anywhere we weren't on the way to included most of tourism-rich Florida.

But as business writer Tony Adams' Sunday feature makes clear, getting people to come through Columbus is now of little or no concern, because people how have more and better reasons for coming to Columbus. This isn't a way station; it's a destination.

The change has happened the way so many important changers happen: incrementally, but certainly not accidentally. The ideas and efforts of a lot of people have gone into making this a place where visitors to this city are now a major economic engine.

The numbers, crunched by the Butler Center for Business and Economic Development at Columbus State University, are pretty eye-popping. Visitors in fiscal 2015 alone spent about $340 million here, contributing to almost 4,500 jobs with a more than $119 million payroll, $18.6 million in local sales and lodging taxes, and $15 million in state sales taxes. Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau President Peter Bowden said there are more than 5,000 visitors in this city on any given day, and during that day they spend some $69,000 on arts, entertainment and recreation.

The Columbus Sports Council, born in the successful efforts of more than 20 years ago to make Columbus an Olympic venue, promoted 164 events that accounted for an FY15 economic impact of more than $16 million, almost one-third of that at the South Commons softball complex.

And in addition to older and more familiar attractions like the Coca-Cola Space Science Center and Oxbow Meadows, the river is now an increasingly popular site for whitewater rafting and zip-lining.

It's probably worth pausing here to remember that the ideas for most (if not every single one) of these attractions and venues were greeted with skepticism, and not infrequently with outright derision and contempt, by the usual-suspect hooting section that seems to be a loud -- and spectacularly consistent in its chronic wrongness -- part of every community.

That people with vision, civic energy and a healthy capacity for selective deafness are able to smile and soldier on is a principal reason why great things get done in spite of obstacles both unexpected and predictable.

This coming Labor Day weekend, DCS Softball of Tallahassee, Fla., is bringing about 8,000 people and 150 softball teams to town for Dickey's Black Softball Circuit. The organization doesn't seek bids for the event, said CEO Clay Dickey, "because of the reception that Columbus gives us, and the hospitality. You can't put a price tag on that."

This story was originally published August 31, 2015 at 4:18 PM with the headline "People now have plenty of reasons for coming here."