San Diego CC Takes Over Sales Efforts

In the wake of media accounts of overspending by San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau officials, the City Council voted to put San Diego Convention Center staff in charge of the center's sales and marketing.

City Manager Lamont Ewell recommended the changes — effective July 1 — after the San Diego Union-Tribune reported last month that the CVB spent more than $13,000 of public money on liquor during the previous 18 months; $16,000 on a golf trip to Boca Raton, Fla., for the CVB president and three top clients; and $3,750 on a trip to Hawaii for two employees and their guests.

In addition to exhibition hall rentals, the convention center staff will now arrange hotel room block packages for show managers and smaller meetings. To take advantage of existing relationships with clients, the center has hired seven members of the CVB sales staff. The CVB will remain responsible for leisure sales and meetings at venues other than the convention center.

San Diego CVB President and CEO Reint Reinders said convention center guests fill 700,000 to 800,000 San Diego hotel rooms each year, less than 10 percent of the more than 10 million rooms booked citywide. According to the CVB, 120 hotels in San Diego book 13,000 meetings annually.

"As you know, California cities are probably in their biggest budget crunch in history," said Fred Sainz, vice president of public affairs for the center. "The idea is for us to assume responsibility for sales without a budget increase."

The convention center corporation, headed by President and CEO Carol Wallace, operates currently on a $32-million annual budget, 90 percent of that generated by convention center revenues. Of that, $1 million will be earmarked for convention center sales. Combining sales office space in outposts like Chicago and Washington, D.C. will yield some cost savings. "The shift will be invisible to clients," Sainz promised.

Meanwhile, the city will cut the CVB's $12.5-million budget (most of which is funded by a hotel bed tax) by $2.7 million. Nine positions besides the seven already mentioned have been cut, and services have been consolidated across departments to make up the shortfall, Reinders said.

As for spending money on client entertainment and travel, the issue that initially attracted media attention to the CVB, he said, "I wouldn't change any of it." Reinders said his team will continue to entertain clients as necessary, only it will be with funding from the private sector. "It's an accounting issue," he said.