Venue Marketing Tactics Vary

By Vanessa VanderZanden -- Tradeshow Week, 4/26/2004

As big and small shows alike flock to the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas, it's evident that these days all venues, even hotels with convention center capabilities, have to offer something just short of exceptional to bring in the business.

With the pressure on to fill space, facilities are doing whatever it takes to attract convention guests to their sites – even resorting to waterslides and roller coasters. And while the big players in this arena may have all the bucks, they don't necessarily have all the luck.

Holding a magnifying glass to the small Kalahari Resort & Convention Center in Wisconsin Dells, Wis. and the massive, world-renowned Disney World Resort in Orlando, it becomes clear that different marketing techniques are needed to ensure success even at two unique fun-lands.

The Kalahari Resort & Convention Center in Wisconsin Dells, Wis. is a sizable resort that, in addition to a convention center, offers guests the largest water park in the United States. Spanning 125,000 square feet, the indoor park is intended to lure guests year-round. In addition, the facility includes 378 guestrooms, the Oasis Experience Day Spa, four restaurants, three main onsite shops and a cinema. In June, expansion construction on the convention center will be completed, offering 80,000 sq. ft. more space, bringing the total to 125,000. Also, construction on the brand new Kalahari Kondominiums will be completed at the same time, increasing the number of resort rooms from 360 to 738.

Currently, the resort draws 40 percent of its guests from conventions, but when the expansion is completed in June, convention guests will account for nearly 60 percent, flip-flopping with purely leisure guests. According to Kalahari spokeswoman Carrie Leum, occupancy rates have hovered in the high 80-percent range for a long time. After the expansions are completed, those occupancy levels are expected to at least stay the same and perhaps even grow.

While the convention space might be considered small by national standards, it is one of the largest facilities in the Midwest. Marketing efforts therefore are kept regional, targeting urbanites two hours away in Milwaukee, and four hours away in Chicago and Minneapolis, hoping to cash in on their need to get away from it all without traveling a long distance. "It's out of the way, but you can still drive to the destination, eliminating the need to pay airfare," Leum explained.

To promote the venue, Leum's team invites meeting planners to stay overnight as part of familiarization trips, cold calls possible clients, sends out electronic e-blasts relating to opportunities at the Kalahari and creates incentive packages. While the surrounding area of Wisconsin Dells has been a large summer tourist destination for families for many years, "Kalahari led the way as being an indoor destination that could stay open year-round, during the winter months," Leum said.

By not being in an urban market, "we could use that to our advantage. People can really get away. People are at the meetings with African masks, art, furniture, African fabrics – not just white tablecloths and burgundy napkins."

Costs are kept down due to the resort's location outside of a large city. This allows the facility to be more flexible on prices for everything from labor to booth setup, using nonunion labor. Also, while there are standard price packages, if a customer has a real bottom line they need to hit, the convention center can do its best to meet it.

"It combines meetings with a family getaway. We package that," Leum noted. "It's a complex, so it's organized, balanced, and in the meetings area you won't see people in flip-flops."

One convert to the ways of the Kalahari is Ed Cantwell, vice president of the Independent Insurance Assn. of Wisconsin. His group has run a Young Independent Insurance Agents of Wisconsin meeting that saw declining attendance figures over the last 10 years. On the verge of canceling the show after 2002's event, when attendance dropped to 35, he decided to switch gears, unite with similar groups out of Illinois and Minnesota, and head with hesitation for the Kalahari.

"We hit a home run," he said. Over 300 people showed up, with himself and other meeting planners having only blocked 50 rooms, thinking that few more than 15 agents with spouses and kids would bother to attend. As it turned out, the one reason most young agents hadn't been in attendance in years past was because they didn't want to leave their families on the weekend.

Other benefits came from locating the event at a family-geared resort. "At most conferences, attendees don't show up for every activity. But when they're families, and it's all inclusive, they show up for every event," Cantwell said. Making the children happy made the attendees happy and turned the experience into something unforgettable. "A 36-year-old member of our council said that when he and his sons got out of the (amphibious water vehicle ride), his 6-year-old son looked at him and said, 'Dad, I sure am glad you're in insurance.'"

While the insurance conference didn't include exhibits, his Kalahari experience was so positive that Cantwell picked the Kalahari for the Independent Insurance Agents of Wisconsin's May 2006 annual event – with 50,000 net square feet of exhibit space, 900 attendees and 100 exhibits. In addition, as a member of the Wisconsin Society of Assn. Executives, Cantwell scheduled a Friday night cookout at the Kalahari for all 75 association executives and meeting planner members.

All this positive support comes from a guy with no children and no desire to splash down waterslides. "It's the best-kept secret in the Midwest," Cantwell said. "And here I thought it was going to be a chintzy park with motel rooms attached." Instead, he found a planner's dream: top-notch facilities with large meeting rooms, a first-class audiovisual setup and exceptional acoustics.

Disney World Resort in Orlando, on the other hand, is an absolute giant. For a price, one can have personalized events at one of the five convention centers with an attached six resorts. Restaurants of every price bracket abound, and there are even four theme parks to visit, or even rent out, for special occasions.

Beyond the well-publicized parks – The Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center, Disney-MGM Studios and Disney's Animal Kingdom – the complex boasts more than 500,000 sq. ft. of function space, which includes meeting rooms, ballrooms, exhibition and event space across the theme parks and in the resorts. Of this space, 318,000 sq. ft. is solely convention center space. Guest rooms total 22,000 across the entire property, with 5,365 of those rooms dedicated to the convention resorts.

In addition, the complex offers meeting planners seminars from the Disney Institute, focusing on topics like leadership, creativity and customer service. "These are basic business issues that infiltrate every organization," said Amie Gorrell, publicist for Disney. She noted that the health care industry uses these seminars the most because patients at hospitals are in many ways like guests at resorts, requiring personal care and an attentive staff.

Also, through Disney Event Productions, a staff of writers, producers, entertainers, technicians, designers, videographers and photographers located onsite can be hired to craft themed events and productions geared for the group at hand. In addition, floral and themed room décor packages, gift baskets, photography and group transportation services are at the fingertips of show managers to create an event like no other. "We believe in treating every person not as a very important person but as a very individual person," Gorrell explained.

With the quantity of attention paid to pampering convention center guests, one can only guess what kind of revenue Disney depends on from such visitors. As per company policy, Gorrell could not reveal what portion of the resort's revenue is generated by convention visitors or what percentage of marketing dollars are spent on luring those guests to the complex, or even offer occupancy rates for convention-related hotel rooms.

Nonetheless, the complex includes more than five miles of white sand beaches, two water parks with water sports activities, a number of spas, fitness centers, tennis courts and five championship golf courses from which convention-goers can benefit. At Disney's BoardWalk Resort and Downtown Disney Pleasure Island, a vast nightlife abounds with live theaters showing everything from comedy productions to musicals.

With so much to offer, Disney would seem the ideal place for a convention, though some would say the overload of activities and venue's massiveness could swallow up smaller tradeshows and distract from the business events at hand. Marianne Saglam, senior director of communications and marketing for the Institute of Transportation Engineers, which is bringing its Annual ITE 2004 to Disney's Coronado Springs Resort for the first time this Aug. 1-4, disagreed with that sentiment.

"I think attendees are going to our meeting for the technical events and may participate in other activities while they're there," she said. "It's definitely a draw, like everyone knows you can get more people to come to Las Vegas than you can to North Dakota."

Still, she's not afraid that the energetic outside environment will distract her event's 2,000 attendees from looking at the wares of its 120 exhibiting companies.

In addition, Toni Caithness, CAE, executive vice president of the Florida Pest Management Assn., explained that the mid-state location works well for holding her FPMA Annual Convention & Exhibition event. "Our attendees reside in Florida so they enjoy visiting Orlando and its theme parks as well as resort sites along the coasts," she said. This June 16-18 will be the second time her 600 - 800-strong attendee group will visit the Coronado.