LVCVA Gets Real
Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 1/4/2008 2:30:00 PM
It’s official: the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority is a destination marketing organization.
OK, so that’s been true in practice for decades, but now the authority has certification by the Destination Marketing Assn. Intl. to give it street cred. The LVCVA was one of the 40 U.S. bureaus to pass DMAI’s Destination Marketing Accreditation Program, or DMAP, in 2007, the first full year of the program.
Terry Jicinsky, LVCVA senior vice president of marketing, described the DMAI certification as “a standard operation procedures initiative.”
The description of the program on DMAI’s Web site emphasizes the importance of branding and performance reporting to stakeholders as two trends that influenced the development of DMAP.
Jicinsky said he and his team had to complete an application demonstrating standardization on 85 points, such as management policies and procedures, employee relations programs, hiring and training, ongoing employee motivation and human resources programs. The answer to each question had to be backed up with documentation illustrating the authority’s practice or policy.
There are wide-reaching benefits to the accreditation, in Jicinsky’s view: “It improves the overall performance of the CVB industry itself, so that clients can begin to expect the same things from CVBs no matter what destination they’re dealing with. Similar to the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, it allows the client to know you’re up to industry standards.”
On a more personal level, Jicinsky said he would also be using the seal of approval in bids made for meetings and conventions, in marketing collateral, and to educate staff on exactly what’s expected of them.
“Currently, fewer than 5 percent of DMAI members have it,” he added.
Two top CVB competitors for major tradeshows, the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau and the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau, were not among those listed on DMAP’s Web site. Only one other destination in geographical proximity to Las Vegas, Albuquerque, N.M., made the list.
