Bureau Association Acts

A comprehensive survey of convention and visitors bureaus taken nearly four years ago as a basis for future strategic planning continues to bear fruit. And, given the hostile environment some CVBs still face, the most recent initiatives may also be the most important.

In 2000, the Intl. Assn. of Convention & Visitor Bureaus commissioned a CVB Futures Project, with an eye to defining the current state of affairs in the industry and developing a plan for coping with what was likely to come. The project's findings have inspired many of the IACVB's strategic initiatives in the ensuing years. Currently on the drawing board are projects covering performance measurement, brand leadership, advocacy and innovations. The first of these recently culminated in a handbook CVBs can use to measure and report their own performance to stakeholders, and the second, brand leadership, is well underway.

On July 13, the IACVB board of directors will vote on the performance measurement handbook. If approved, as expected, the guide will be rolled out to members during special educational sessions scheduled as part of the IACVB Annual Convention July 14–17 at the Sheraton Boston Hotel.

The handbook is comprised of four main parts: performance reporting for convention sales, travel trade sales, and marketing and communications; and calculating ROI. Each part covers terms and definitions, then details measurement techniques, including formulas and suggestions for compiling reports.

This is the result of more than two years' work by the IACVB's Performance Measurement Team, or PMT. Christine Shimasaki, executive vice president of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau, has chaired the PMT the entire time and is optimistic about the guide's applications.

"CVBs have been measuring their own performance for some time; it's not new to our industry," Shimasaki said. "But just as tradeshow producers are all talking and thinking differently about ROI, so are we struggling with a standard practice for doing so. This provides guidance for that."

The handbook was not based on formal surveys. Rather, the PMT organized a series of sessions to take place during IACVB gatherings, where CVB representatives from around the country could get together and talk about how they evaluate themselves. In January of this year, the IACVB hired Ruth Nadler Trojan, of independent consultancy Nadler & Associates, to attend the sessions and cull attendee feedback into documents the PMT could act on. A series of drafts, open forums, revisions and votes produced the final handbook.

It's impossible to quantify the feedback that went into the handbook, because so many interested parties showed up at sessions, according to Doug Price, IACVB senior vice president of professional development and staff liaison to the PMT.

Price also would not pin down the cost of the project, pointing out that it was negligible, since most of the work had been done by volunteers.

"This document brings a business approach to what is, to date, a rather disjointed way of measuring performance for our industry," he said. "We know that these external audits have been happening around the country, so you can say this is a proactive response to audits that are occurring or will be in the future."

Nobody knows that better than Shimasaki. Her own bureau has in recent months been subjected to an audit of its spending practices, which have had a tough going-over in the San Diego press.

"We're in a world that demands more accountability, transparency and consistency," said Shimasaki. "For us — not just in San Diego, but all CVBs — to achieve growth and develop a solid business plan, being able to write metrics and demonstrate your accountability are essential."

As the Performance Measurement Initiative winds down, another is kicking into high gear, and it too has more than a little to do with the public's perception of CVBs. Dubbed the Brand Leadership Campaign, this $200,000 project has a dual purpose: on one hand, to teach bureaus how to effectively develop their own brands; on the other, to brand the IACVB itself as a way of improving the public's understanding and opinion of bureaus in general.

The Brand Leadership Campaign initiative is headed by San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau President and CEO Reint Reinders, who has himself come under attack in the local media for practices such as taking clients on golf trips to Hawaii. But Reinders said the initiative was not launched in response to the scandals that have plagued CVBs over the last few years, since each inquiry is different — some with merit, others without.

Still, he added, "We have to make sure that people know we're open and transparent, and that they look up to us."

To accomplish this, the IACVB in January hired Brand Strategy, a marketing firm that in the past consulted with clients such as Nike and Cinnabon on their images, and more recently has applied its principles of branding to destinations like Seattle and Palm Springs.

IACVB Vice President of Marketing and Communications Maura Nelson, who is leading the campaign on the IACVB staff side, said Brand Strategy's premise is simple: "You have to become distinctive in your customer's mind and be relevant in a way that will give them the greatest satisfaction continually." A lot of destination managers are savvy marketers who are clever with slogans and gimmicks, she said, but few understand the power of a genuine brand or how to develop it.

The group is currently in the assessment phase, informally polling IACVB members and other interested parties to find out what they think a CVB is, what it does, why that work is important and how it's distinctive. This information will be used to craft a "brand promise," as Nelson called it, for the association on behalf of the entire CVB industry.

Simultaneously, the initiative is developing a set of tools to teach individual CVBs how to do their own assessments, giving them the right questions to ask and methods for using them to create an effective brand. Said Reinders, "This will help CVBS at all levels to become better marketers. By elevating the practices of all CVBs, we'll collectively have the opportunity to be better recognized."