San Diego Named Best Meetings Destination
Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 10/11/2004
San Diego beat out Orlando as the premiere convention and meetings destination in the United States and Canada in the latest Watkins Research Group survey.
The 2004 Convention Bureau Marketing Opportunities Survey, a biennial questionnaire of professional meeting planning executives, found that San Diego was the most desirable location of 44 metropolises analyzed. Orlando held the No. 1 spot (and San Diego No. 2) in the 2002 survey.
Kansas City-based research firm Watkins, in association with Flaspohler Research Group, conducted the study over seven weeks, analyzing customer awareness of the destinations; convention center facilities, hotels and accessibility; and safety, activities and the effectiveness of convention bureaus.
"This shows it ain't just the weather (in San Diego)," Watkins Research Group President Curt Watkins said.
Service, not the sunshine, is what keeps clients coming back year after year, said Carol Wallace, president and CEO of the San Diego Convention Center Corp. "With our competition nipping at our heels, we need to do everything possible to stay competitive."
In collecting the data, Watkins asked CVBs to refer appropriate interviewees to them, resulting in 1,546 invitations to "cream of the crop" industry executives. More than 400 individuals completed the online survey. Watkins said nearly one-third of these respondents have been in the meeting planning industry for a decade or more.
"There's nothing out there quite like this," Watkins said of his product — and perhaps of its price. At $18,600, 15 first-come, first-served subscribers get access to the full survey, which is more than 200 pages long and includes nearly 100 charts. Watkins said he feels the package is worth it to subscribers.
Several second-tier cities have become more competitive with first-tier cities because of what they've learned from the survey results, Watkins added. "It's their primary strategic planning tool."
Other top-ranked cities include Philadelphia (most impressive CVB), Washington, D.C. (most accessible city), Salt Lake City (safest) and Toronto (highest-ranking Canadian city).
A headquarters hotel within a five-minute walk of a convention facility was deemed as a must-have for nearly 80 percent of respondents, while 40 percent view "green" convention centers and hotels as absolutely essential, according to the survey.
