CVBs Write a Sale of Two Cities

It was the best of times, it was the ... well, it wasn't exactly the worst of times with the convention and visitors bureaus in two seemingly mismatched cities joining forces to market themselves. Baltimore and Fort Worth, Texas, have created a convention sales partnership that their CEOs believe will lead to multiple-city deals for city-wide events in their disparate regions.

And it doesn't hurt that one of them has a Gaylord resort — which routinely books multiple-city, multiple-year deals — in its neighborhood and the other has a Gaylord property opening next spring.

Baltimore Area CVB President and CEO Tom Noonan and Forth Worth CVB President and CEO David DuBois have hired one sales representative, based in Maryland, who will represent both cities primarily to potential corporate and incentives clients in the Northeast corridor. Another will be hired shortly in the Midwest, probably in the Chicago area. The two CVBs will share all the expenses of the new hires — and they're looking for a third partner CVB, most likely in California.

Noonan said, "(DuBois's) sales force wasn't as big as he wanted. Mine wasn't as big as I wanted."

DuBois said, "We decided, let's share the expense 50-50 right down the middle, and then let's look for another one on the West Coast."

While large hotel chains, most notably Gaylord, have marketed their properties this way for years, this may be the first time CVBs have joined forces to do the same thing.

The similarities between the cities are that they have about the same number of hotel rooms available near convention centers of approximately the same size and new hotels under construction. The differences are that one of them is an Atlantic Ocean seaport and the other is landlocked in the middle of Texas.

But, DuBois said, "It's not about branding, it's about sales. It's about capacity. It's really about geographic rotation."

And again, that brings up the case of Gaylord, which now has hotel properties with substantial event space in Grapevine, Texas (in the Dallas-Fort Worth area); Nashville, Tenn.; and Kissimmee, Fla. The Gaylord Natl., with an expected 2,000 hotel rooms, 180,000 square feet of exhibit space and 290,000 sq. ft. of additional meeting space, will open April 25 in Natl. Harbor, Md., about 30 miles from Baltimore.

DuBois said it is not a coincidence that the new sales partnership is being undertaken by cities so close to some of those properties.

"Gaylord has a huge convention center project coming in Tom's backyard," DuBois said, "and we have a successful Gaylord in our backyard. We're competing with them everyday."

Now, Gaylord offers meeting planners with groups that prefer to rotate their meetings geographically the chance to book three-year contracts — along with discounts — for meetings in Nashville, the Dallas-Fort Worth area and central Florida. Company officials have acknowledged they are building the Gaylord Natl. in the Washington, D.C., area to take advantage of the fact many associations have their headquarters there and because of its proximity to the Northeastern United States.

"The director of sales and marketing at one of those Gaylords, I think we just got their attention," DuBois said.

Gaylord officials had no comment on the plans of the Baltimore and Fort Worth CVBs as of press time.

While the ability to offer an alternative to the Gaylord model is one reason for the Baltimore-Fort Worth partnership, it is not the only one.

"It's just another sales strategy we hope will pay off," Noonan said. "We get two sales people for the price of one, both of whom will be aggressively selling Baltimore and Fort Worth to groups that typically book on a geographic rotation and may choose an East Coast destination one year and a city in the Midwest the next."

Noonan and DuBois are in talks now with CVBs in the Western U.S. with similar hotel-convention center packages that they will hope will join the partnership.

DuBois said Long Beach and San Jose, Calif., are both likely candidates, but Noonan said, "Maybe it won't even be in California, maybe it's in Colorado or Arizona."

"It just has to be somewhere in the West," he added, to allow them to offer meeting planners the three-city, national-rotation pattern many are looking for.

While both Noonan and DuBois convinced their CVB boards of the merits of the proposal because of its real benefits, the idea was initially hatched as a result of their own long-lasting relationship.

Not only have they been friends for quite some time, but also by coincidence they started their new jobs with their respective CVBs within a day of each other. DuBois took over as head of the Fort Worth CVB Jan. 2 of this year and Noonan did the same in Baltimore Jan. 3. Previously, DuBois was vice president of sales for Meeting Professionals Intl. and Noonan was senior vice president at the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau.