Rountree to Leave Atlanta Bureau
Loss of biggest show reportedly not behind decision to leave CVB
By Margo McCall -- Tradeshow Week, 7/11/2005
Just months after the city lost its biggest tradeshow, longtime Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau executive Carey Rountree decided that he, too, would pull up stakes.
Rountree, who joined the bureau in 1992 after 15 years with Marriott Hotels, has served as its second-in-command since being promoted to executive vice president in 2002.
Bill Howard, the CVB's vice president of marketing, tourism and communications, said Rountree's decision to depart has more to do with him wanting to be the head of his own bureau than with the Natl. Assn. of Home Builders' April decision to terminate its contract to hold THE INTL. BUILDERS' SHOW/TecHOMExpo in Atlanta in 2007 and 2008.
"It has absolutely not one thing to do with the (Natl. Assn. of) Home Builders. He's interested in maybe leading a bureau on his own," Howard said, adding that Spurgeon Richardson, the CVB's president and CEO, has no current plans to retire.
Local reports have drawn a connection between Rountree's decision to seek opportunities elsewhere and a now-infamous CVB e-mail siding with hotels in a disagreement with the NAHB over room rates. The e-mail might have contributed to the 2,000-member NAHB board opting to terminate its contract to hold its annual show at the Georgia World Congress Center in '07 and '08.
The show — which will now be held in Las Vegas in '07 and Orlando in '08 — has grown in recent years, along with the strength of its market. This year's Jan. 13–16 event at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando drew 79,000 attendees to an 884,000 net square foot showfloor with 1,400 exhibitors. That compares with the 2004 show, when 51,704 attendees were attracted to an 803,774 net sq. ft. floor with 1,629 exhibitors at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Howard downplayed the e-mail, saying the NAHB wanted to move the show anyway due to a shortage of exhibit space and hotel rooms in Atlanta. "They were doing everything they could to get out of their contract," he said.
Nonetheless, city officials were concerned enough about the loss of such a big piece of business that the CVB hired Alston & Bird, an outside law firm, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the NAHB show's departure. The report, released in late May, provides an inside look at the lengths to which Atlanta went to keep the group from moving the annual tradeshow.
The NAHB had raised concerns as early as 2003 that Atlanta didn't have enough exhibit space or hotel rooms to support its growing tradeshow, the report noted. But the group in May 2004 signed a contract to stay after an intensive lobbying campaign by officials from the Atlanta CVB, GWCC, local hotels and the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Assn. A $650,000 annual contribution from the hotel industry to the homebuilders association was part of the enticement, an offer not uncommon for a show of that size, according to Howard.
The CVB had arranged to collect the $650,000 contribution by asking participating hotels to turn over $20 for each room booked during the tradeshow. That arrangement riled some NAHB members during the group's three-day site visit in February, the report stated.
The matter came up after NAHB members negotiated rates with hoteliers during the first day of the site visit. Robert Schuler, the CVB's vice president of sales, told the NAHB that the arrangement could be changed if it was problematic.
That evening, however, an unnamed mid-level CVB manager — referred to in the report as "Mr. XXXX" — volunteered to e-mail hotels the NAHB had not yet visited to notify them of the developments. Although Rountree and Schuler gave the staffer permission to send the e-mail, they didn't review its contents. And because the staffer was leaving on a business trip, he "hurriedly drafted and sent the e-mail," according to the report.
The next day, NAHB officials found out about the contents of the e-mail, and objected to its tone, as well as the staffer's recommendation that the hotels "stand firm" on their rates.
Rountree and Schuler apologized and promised to review the matter. Richardson — summoned back to Atlanta from a business trip — also apologized and offered to write a memo alerting local hotels to the change. As the city struggled to retain the annual tradeshow, it held an emergency meeting with hotels and presented data indicating that many hotel-rate quotes were comparable to what they'd been in 2002, when the group last visited Atlanta.
In April, Richardson and GWCC Executive Director Dan Graveline journeyed to NAHB headquarters in Washington, D.C., to make their apologies. Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and CVB Chairwoman Vicki Escarra also paid a visit.
Mr. XXXX offered to resign. His resignation wasn't initially accepted, but he was reprimanded, ordered to enroll in a business correspondence course and required to present all future correspondence for review. When he offered his resignation a second time, it was accepted.
No other staff members were disciplined as a result of the incident, although Alston & Bird did recommend that the CVB establish guidelines for written external communications, clarify employee responsibilities and hire a human resources manager.
Atlanta has yet to replace the show, which ranked No. 13 on the latest Tradeshow Week 200. "The hotels are having success finding smaller in-house stuff to fill the void," said Howard. "But it's a whole different thing to find one or two things to fill the exhibit space."
Rountree, who didn't return a call for comment, hasn't yet set a date for his departure. Howard credited him with "leading us through one of our most productive eras. Carey's leaving the city in good shape."
