Is Los Angeles the New New York?

In our last issue of 2007, we made some educated guesses about the year ahead. Who could have ever imagined that one of them would turn out to be accurate before the new year even got started?

For all intents and purposes, any substantial expansion of New York's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center of New York is off. East Coast readers of Tradeshow Week don't need me to tell them this is not good news. The largest city in the United States and the business capital of the country should have a venue that can accommodate the kinds of economic activity you'd expect a city of New York's stature to generate.

Those reading this as nothing but good news are the other East Coast cities that have recently invested in the kind of convention infrastructure that attracts customers who once considered New York the only place to hold an event.

The local political situation notwithstanding (and who really wants to try to figure it out anyway?), you can guess at the short-term thinking that has the state abandoning plans for the Javits expansion and coming up with the wacky idea to build a new convention center in Queens. NYC & Company opened nine new offices in foreign countries in the last year. Manhattan sidewalks are crowded with Europeans who can afford to travel to the city merely to go shopping. With hundreds of thousands of visitors each spending hundreds of dollars daily, the rationale must be: Who needs to waste money trying to attract business visitors when the department stores are full as it is?

Of course, taking the long view, the U.S. dollar will regain its strength one of these days, and all that low-hanging fruit in international tourism will fall to the ground and rot. At that point, some three or four or 10 years from now, New York will possibly find itself in a jam somewhat similar to the one Los Angeles was in a few years ago – which it extricated itself from, by the way.

Throughout the 1990s and the early part of this decade, when resources for the predecessor to LA Inc., The Convention & Visitors Bureau, were scant, they went where they could generate the quickest return: promoting Hollywood, the beach, Beverly Hills, etc., to foreign tourists. Meanwhile, practically in L.A.'s back yard, Anaheim and Las Vegas were busily creating more exhibition space and securing long-term contracts with tradeshow and convention organizers.

At the same time, a squabble among downtown hoteliers (sounding familiar, New York?) stalled proposals for an anchor convention hotel, along with any of the other things business visitors want, i.e., decent restaurants and shopping nearby.

Finally, developers did get interested in a revival of downtown L.A.; those hotels and restaurants are on their way in the form of LA Live; and LA Inc. and the Los Angeles Convention Center are booking shows they wouldn't dare try for just a few years ago.

In 2006, New York had 16 TSW 200 shows, Los Angeles six. However, as we can see, factors at play in both cities may, in a few short years, reverse those numbers.

Even if supporters of a Javits expansion were to somehow quickly gain some critical momentum, the days are long gone when they could imagine themselves in a position to compete with the big three tradeshow cities (Las Vegas, Chicago and Orlando). But could it really be true that they can't even beat L.A. at this game?