Annual Reports: Good News for CVBs in 2006

By Rachel Wimberly -- Tradeshow Week, 4/2/2007

Competition is fierce in the convention market. With better and bigger venues popping up in cities nationwide and others adding space, convention and visitors bureaus have their work cut out for them when it comes to setting themselves apart from the rest of the gang.

Last year was decent enough for almost all the CVBs Tradeshow Week spoke to in preparing this report. In fact, after sifting through piles of annual reports with a ton of charts and numbers, nearly all of the CVBs reported, if not steady numbers compared with 2005, vast improvement. But, it hasn't been an easy road for all of them.

Here's what a handpicked few had to say about 2006.

Without a doubt, the city with the biggest hill to climb last year was New Orleans. Hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, the popular tradeshow destination saw its bookings plummet — 450 events, with a net worth of about $2 billion to the city, canceled — but step by step it has struggled to get its feet back on the ground.

"We're doing pretty well, not exactly where we want to be, but further along than we thought we would be," said Kelly Schulz, vice president of communications and public relations for the bureau.

Big conventions made their way back into town. In June 2006, the city hosted 17,000 attendees for the American Library Assn. Annual Conference & Exhibition, and in November, 24,000 realtors flocked to the Big Easy for the Realtors Annual Conference & Expo.

Schulz said the city has even started booking new business it didn't typically attract even before the storm: corporate meetings. Whirlpool and Sherwin-Williams are just two companies that held major meetings in the city.

"We weren't traditionally known as a corporate meeting place," she said. "We have the space right now because our leisure travel hasn't recovered from pre-Katrina. There are still a lot of misconceptions out there about the city."

Battling those misconceptions is the No. 1 priority for the bureau, Schulz added.

"Believe it or not, we still get questions like 'Is the city underwater?' and 'Do the hotels have electricity?'" she said.

To clear things up, the bureau made some ads poking fun at people's off-the-wall questions. "We have one that says, 'Dry? We're never dry,' and there's a lady drinking a martini," Schulz said.

The meetings and tradeshow industry has had a longstanding relationship with New Orleans, and it's not about to turn its back on the city in a time of need. Meetings Professional Intl. held its annual meeting there in January, the Professional Convention Management Assn. will host its annual gathering there in 2009, and the Intl. Assn. of Exhibition and Events will have its 2010 Expo! Expo! Annual Meeting & Exhibition in New Orleans.

"Part of our strategy was to get the decision-makers here, because seeing is believing," Shulz said.

The Boston-based bureau had a couple challenges on its hands in 2006. One was filling in dates for the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, which had been open for just over a year. The other was keeping the Hynes Convention Center busy with another venue in town.

"Things are going well from my perspective," said Jim Rooney, executive director of the MCCA. "One of the highlights of 2006 was hosting the ASAE & the Center Annual Meeting & Exposition (at the BCEC). It was nice for us because we could show off the building. We deliberately hosted it so people could see what was going on here."

Snagging two Microsoft shows at the new center was also a coup, Rooney added, and medical meetings dominated both venues as the most-booked industry segment.

And even though there were some naysayers who thought the Hynes would stumble when the BCEC was given the go-ahead last year to host consumer shows, there's enough to go around for both, Rooney said.

The BCEC's future dates are so packed with tradeshows, he added, there's only room for the consumer events in the slow periods, such as between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

All in all, the BCEC is beating projections set forth in a 2003 business plan. "We knew opening in mid-2004 that during the next two years, 2005 and 2006, the industry would be watching to see how it goes," Rooney said. "We thought we'd reach stability by 2010, but we're actually ahead of pace and expect to reach it by 2008 or 2009."

And, before anyone complains about the lack of hotels near the BCEC (right now there's only the Westin Boston Waterfront), MCCA's got that covered too. The 450-room Marriott Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel will open in the fall and the Boston Redevelopment Authority recently gave approval to a developer to build a mid-priced 500-room hotel nearby.

Bureau President Charles Ahlers has seen a lot of changes in the meetings and conventions market in the 15 years he's spent in Anaheim (not including a sales stint in the '70s).

"The competition started to change," he said. "More meeting space opened up in San Francisco, Las Vegas, San Diego, Portland and Seattle. There wasn't much going on before."

The Anaheim Convention Center opened its doors in 1966 and, in order to survive in what's become a very crowded corner of the country, it's gone through five different expansions.

The center hosts a number of large shows, including the NAMM Show, with 85,000 attendees, and Natural Products Expo West/Supply Expo, with an estimated 47,000 attendees.

"For us, 2006 was a good year, and 2005 was a good year," Ahlers said. "There wasn't much change, but flat is good, and in 2007 we have more citywides (38 total)."

But even with 813,000 square feet of exhibit space and 140,000 sq. ft. of meeting space, Ahlers said, he needs even more room to keep drawing the big shows.

"We're hoping for another expansion," he added. "We have an RFP out for economic impact. With more space, we would open ourselves up, especially for medicals, because right now there isn't a meeting space in California big enough for them."

Even though Anaheim has some substantial shows on its calendar, the bureau swallowed a bitter pill recently when ISSA/Interclean USA, a show focused on the cleaning industry, canceled its 2008 dates and moved to Las Vegas without even trying out the city first. Ahlers said the empty fall dates were going to be hard to fill.

But, moving forward, there's plenty more fish in the sea and Ahlers thinks Anaheim is just the city to catch them.

"We have a big drive-in population, about 19.2 million people in a 70-mile radius," he said. "The only other market that has that is New York."

In 2004, 30 shows and conventions were booked into the Salt Palace Convention Center. By 2005, that number had grown to 42 and, by last year, 47.

In the meantime, the facility finished an expansion Aug. 10 that tacked on an extra 145,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space and 72,000 sq. ft. of meeting space.

But, it's not just the expansion that's bringing in the shows. According to Scott Beck, CEO and president of the bureau, all the attention the city received when it hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics translated to numerous bookings that are now coming to fruition for the center.

"The exposure gave us a lot of companies that were coming in 2005 and 2006 for the first time. We've moved from the kid's table to the adult's table at Thanksgiving. The positive feedback from press and pictures sent out all around the world, we are still benefiting from," Beck said.

Another factor that has contributed to Salt Lake's growth is its increased population base, now more than 1 million, which has led to a stronger economy. Today the city pulls in pharmaceutical companies, associations and educational groups looking for exhibit and meeting space.

"We also tend to do very well in areas that serve the outdoor market," Beck said.

The most important reason for its expansion was to accommodate Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, one of the Salt Palace's flagship shows, which has been at the center for 10 years and set a record for attendance in 2006 with 23,600 visitors.

Even with the successes, Beck and his staff aren't resting on their laurels. He said there is still more work to be done.

"We need to really look at how we can continue to grow our convention business, and deal with the issue of increased hotel rates," Beck said. "We need to make sure we present product that has value and keep service level high."