Tradeshow Week's Top CVB Execs
-- Tradeshow Week, 7/27/2009
Las Vegas is not Cleveland; Nashville is not Phoenix – and yet all of them, and many more, have smart, hard-working convention and visitors bureau executives dealing with unique challenges and opportunities. In the next few pages, Tradeshow Week editors profile a number of CVB executives who have during the past few years excelled at their jobs, bringing unique gifts to sometimes very idiosyncratic circumstances. It is by no stretch of the imagination the definitive list of every great booster of a destination, but it is a sampling of those whose achievements over time have been notable.
Charles Ahlers
President and CEO
Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau
What’s it say about someone when he leaves a destination, only to return decades later to the top job?
For Charles Ahlers, it shows dedication. The president and CEO of the Anaheim/Orange County VCB began his career in Anaheim in the 1970s, only to leave for stints elsewhere before returning in 1992, and has worked to put the destination on the tradeshow industry’s map ever since.
And he’s been successful. The Anaheim Convention Center is home to several Tradeshow Week 200 shows, including The NAMM Show, ranked No. 34 on the 2009 TSW 200, and the Craft & Hobby Assn. Winter Convention & Trade Show, ranked No. 82.
Still, the destination has its issues.
“The biggest challenge facing Anaheim is repositioning how we’re thought about,” Ahlers said. “The destination’s changed, and I think creating opportunities for people to think differently about (it) is perhaps our biggest challenge.”
Still, Anaheim’s outlook is positive, according to Ahlers.
“We may be in a little bit better position simply because we are in the heart of the second-biggest drive market in the United States,” he said. “There are about 21 million people that live within 90 miles of the Anaheim Convention Center.”
Next up for Anaheim is a convention center expansion.
“We hope that we can ... develop another 250,000 square feet of flexible meeting and exhibit area at the Anaheim CC that will be ready to go in late ’13,” Ahlers said.
Phillip Jones
President and CEO
Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau
Dallas draws a respectable number of tradeshows every year, but it has had a huge albatross around its neck: The closest hotel to the Dallas Convention Center was five blocks away.
The quest to get a hotel adjacent to the center started many years before Phillip Jones came on board at the CVB in 2003, but he took up the cause with gusto the minute he arrived in town.
“Phillip does a great job representing the city of Dallas,” said Donald S. Freeman Jr., chairman of Dallas-based Freeman and chairman-elect of the Dallas CVB. “His leadership was particularly notable this year as the city of Dallas approved the construction of a convention center hotel.”
The road to approval, at times, seemed like the proverbial battle between David and Goliath. Jones, along with Mayor Tom Leppert and the Dallas City Council, fought hard to convince voters and the Omni-branded hotel recently got the go-ahead.
“Seeing the construction begin on the Omni Dallas Convention Center Hotel is the most significant highlight for me since joining the Dallas CVB in 2003,” Jones said.
The hotel isn’t the only thing Jones has achieved in Dallas. When he joined the bureau in 2003, the organization was $3 million in debt and had booked 500,000 room nights the year before.
“Five years later, the Dallas CVB is operating with a $3 million reserve and booked more than 1 million room nights last year, a record for the city of Dallas,” Jones said.
Mark Liberman
President and CEO
LA Inc., the Los Angeles convention and visitors bureau
Los Angeles, in past decades, hasn’t been exactly what anybody would consider a prime tradeshow destination, but, since he joined LA Inc. in June 2003, Mark Liberman has made great inroads in changing that view.
During the six years Liberman has headed up the city’s bureau, L.A. has expanded its group business by growing not only the number of conventions it hosts, but also the size of those conventions.
According to Liberman, LA Inc.’s sales focus has resulted in increasing citywide bookings by 259 percent, at the same time raising the number of convention room nights booked nine-fold.
In addition, at LA Inc., new partnerships with sponsors, local business, hotels and attractions in the city have been formed.
One such partnership with Los Angeles World Airports resulted in the opening of the first city-level tourism office in China in 2006. “As this market develops and the economy improves, L.A. will stand to gain both group and leisure business from the major cities of China,” Liberman said.
L.A. has it all, he said.
Well-publicized is the fact the city now has a revitalized downtown sports and entertainment district – deemed L.A. Live – which is rapidly expanding and will feature both Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott-branded hotels, slated to open early next year.
A block from L.A. Live, the city also features one of the few Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified convention centers in the U.S., the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Still, Liberman hasn’t stopped striving for more. Right now, he is working to certify the city’s green-conscious hotels, and, at the start of the year, he helped to launch a newly redesigned Web site, www.discoverLosAngeles.com, which serves as a one-stop shop for meeting planners. One of his current goals is to grow the number of visitors to L.A.
According to Patti MacJennett, senior vice president of marketing for LA Inc., Liberman has taken the organization to a new level and boosted convention bookings at the same time.
“He made a commitment to increase the marketing of the L.A. brand to stimulate travel to (the city),” she said. “Under Mark’s leadership, LA Inc. has significantly expanded its presence around the globe. He leads our team with vision, realism and a great sense of humor.”
Chris Meyer
Vice president of convention sales
Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority
Undoubtedly, Las Vegas has had a tough start to the year, with more than 400 events being canceled so far.
In dealing with the side-by-side issues of, first, the downturn in the economy and, then, President Obama’s comments suggesting corporations receiving stimulus funds should stay away from the city, Las Vegas has had a lot to cope with.
Fortunately, though, one of the most driven CVB executives in the business, Chris Meyer, has beaten the pavements nonstop telling anyone and everyone who will listen what a great city Las Vegas is.
“Chris is a dedicated, hard-working member of our team who is strongly committed to the success of Las Vegas tradeshows and the industry as a whole,” said Rossi Ralenkotter, president and CEO of the LVCVA. “He applies his knowledge and skills to all aspects of the tradeshow industry. He lives the Las Vegas brand every day.”
Meyer said the biggest challenge he’s faced in his career so far has been the current financial crisis and misconceptions about the meetings industry as a whole.
“We were challenged to continue to sell our facility and destination, while at the same time making sure that the convention industry was accurately represented,” Meyer said. “(Another challenge) at the Las Vegas Convention Center has been to maintain operations through our various construction projects over the years, while also maintaining high customer service.”
Even though Las Vegas has struggled lately, Meyer still has a lot to be proud of, with the city snagging 49 tradeshows on the 2009 TSW 200, a 24.5-percent share of the market. Chicago, the No. 2 city on the list, has 20 shows.
At the LVCVA since 2000, Meyer leads a team of more than 17 salespeople.
He said, “Since my start at the LVCVA, I have not had a single boring day. I absolutely love that I get to come to work every day and sell Las Vegas.”
At the end of the year, Meyer will have another role to fill – that of incoming chairman of the Intl. Assn. of Exhibitions and Events – only the second time someone from the supplier side of the business has held that position.
Steve Moore
President and CEO
Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau
In May, Phoenix hosted its largest meeting in recent memory. The Natl. Rifle Assn.’s Annual Meeting & Exhibits brought somewhere close to 50,000 attendees to a 138,000 net square foot showfloor in a Phoenix Convention Center that, after two expansions since Steve Moore became president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau in 2002, now has 690,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space and more than 250,000 sq. ft. of meeting rooms.
However, by the time the NRA was gathering in Phoenix, Moore likely was already busy with details of the 2011 MLB All-star Weekend, wrapping up plans for the city’s bid for the 2014 Super Bowl and who knows what else.
And that’s just in Phoenix.
In January, the Destination & Travel Foundation launched a $4 million capital campaign that has amassed, by this point, $3 million in pledges.
“A lot of that is because of Steve’s leadership and his relationships in the industry,” said Jim Duda, managing director of Destinations Showcase, for Destination Marketing Assn. Intl., and executive director of the Destination & Travel Foundation.
Moore currently is chairman of the foundation board, where his voluminous network of contacts and encyclopedic knowledge of the travel and tourism industry have come in handy.
“Steve is politically savvy and he’s a lightning rod for information,” Duda said. “Plus, he’s got a big personality, and he knows how to leverage that.”
Moore certainly has been around. Before stepping in to head the Phoenix bureau six years ago, he spent 13 years as executive director of the San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau and 14 more in multiple capacities, including executive vice president, at the Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau.
He currently is on the board of the U.S. Travel Assn. and, closer to home, vice chair of the Arizona Tourism Alliance, Valley Hotel & Resort Assn. and the Greater Phoenix Business Leadership Coalition.
Duda figures there are very few challenges, even in these serious times for the travel and tourism industry, that Moore can’t handle.
“That’s because he’s worked with most of the people involved,” Duda added, “and he’s taught a lot of them.”
Tom Muldoon
President
Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau
Sure, Tom Muldoon gets around the country and does what it takes to draw events to Philadelphia. After all, he’s the guy who brought BIO Intl. to town in 2005 and talked the Republican Natl. Committee into holding its 2000 Republican Natl. Convention in Philadelphia.
But, it’s probably the way Muldoon handles the steady drip-drip-drip of the local political scene in his efforts to benefit the meetings and hospitality industry that is his real claim to fame.
After spending the early years of his career running hotels, primarily in New York, he opened the Adam’s Mark Hotel in Philadelphia in 1982, moving on to take the post as president of the Philadelphia CVB three years later, where he’s been ever since.
Muldoon was at the forefront of the drive to get the Philadelphia Convention Center off the ground in 1993, an effort that cost $777 million, but was the stimulus for the construction of a number of the hotels and restaurants in downtown Philadelphia today.
And, he led the drive for expansion of the convention center, which will add 260,000 square feet of exhibit space to the 440,000 sq. ft. of existing space by the time it opens in early 2011. That opening will coincide with approximately 2,500 additional hotel rooms coming online at the same time.
There were obstacles to overcome with each effort, but the network of local and state contacts Muldoon has developed during nearly a quarter of a century as the head of the bureau has helped. For example, it can’t hurt that Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter’s previous job was chairman of the convention center authority.
To make sure there are events to fill all that extra space, Muldoon has put exactly the right people in place to guarantee he gets the kind of business he wants.
Last summer, he enlisted the help of Bonnie Grant, the then-recently appointed executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Life Sciences Congress, to draw on all the resources in the tri-state area of Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey to attract health care meetings and tradeshows.
Two months ago, Muldoon hired former Reed Exhibitions Group Vice President Kevin Richards to be his national director of tradeshows.
But even before that, Muldoon was getting rave reviews from the tradeshow community about the help he has given them.
Questex President and CEO Kerry Gumas said, “Tom encourages his entire staff to put the customer first, and that is why the PCVB has the positive reputation it does today.”
Tom Noonan
President and CEO
Baltimore Area Convention & Visitors Assn.
In the past several years, Baltimore has blossomed into a meetings destination to be reckoned with.
The city features a new $300 million Hilton just a hop, skip and a jump away from the 300,000 square foot Baltimore Convention Center. It also has a slew of new boutique hotels on the way, including Indigo and Four Seasons brands – all in close proximity to the Inner Harbor.
But it also has Tom Noonan, who has headed the Baltimore Area Convention & Visitors Assn. since January 2007.
After Noonan went to work in the city, its hotel room night bookings jumped from 300,000 two years ago to 522,000 in 2009, and its meetings business increased substantially as well, with double the convention bookings it had in 2004.
This, in part, could be attributed to BACVA’s participation in a three-city partnership that Noonan and his longtime friend David DuBois, president and CEO of the Forth Worth (Texas) Convention & Visitors Bureau, launched with the Sacramento (Calif.) Convention & Visitors Bureau last year.
The partnership, one of the first of its kind, allowed for all three cities to share salespeople and offer value-added options to customers who booked the cities on a rotating basis. In May, Sacramento had to back out of the partnership due to state budget issues, but a new third city on the West Coast is being sought.
Also this year, Noonan helped to launch multicultural, GLBT, culinary and cultural initiatives, including one called the Baltimore Waterfront Invasion, set up by Sam Rogers, BACVA’s senior vice president of sales, which is a marketing partnership between BACVA, the Maryland Science Center, the Natl. Aquarium and the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore. It helps to promote a jellyfish exhibit at the aquarium and a dinosaur exhibit at the science center, all with the intention of drawing visitors to Baltimore.
“People are looking for reasons to visit and to travel right now,” Noonan said. “Why not work with our cultural community to be the reasons to visit Baltimore? It’s really paying off.”
According to John Cychol, vice president of meeting sales at the Fort Worth CVB, Noonan always has been creative. “He was made for this business,” Cychol said. “He is an excellent destination marketing executive, and he understands the operational aspects of sales and marketing.”
Greg Ortale
President and CEO
Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau
Houston, site of the inaugural Tradeshow Week Fastest 50 in 2003 – as well as this year’s event – is a tradeshow destination with more than 2 million square feet of exhibit space at its various convention and exhibit halls.
It has the space to accommodate large tradeshows, along with airline service as good as any other destination and a wide range of cultural attractions, according to Greg Ortale, who has led the Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau into progressively greener pastures since his arrival in December 2007.
Earlier that year, in the wake of the resignation of its former CEO, Gerard Tollett, the CVB faced a period during which staff morale was very low.
According to Ortale, the bureau had not had a full-time executive for an extended period and organization was lacking. It needed someone to help get it back on track, and Ortale was glad to help.
When Houston came calling, Ortale was president and CEO of Meet Minneapolis, Official Convention + Visitors Assn., where he had spent the previous 20 years. But he was no stranger to the Lone Star State, or to Houston.
Prior to his time in Minneapolis, Ortale was at the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Council, serving as executive vice president and general manager from 1979 to 1987.
When he returned to Houston a year and a half ago, he had one goal in mind: Get the bureau back on track.
“There was a certain amount of mission drift, trying to be all things to all people and constituencies without the staff or financial resource,” Ortale said. “I have also set about decentralizing our convention sales effort and increasing our international meetings effort.”
Currently, he added, he and the HCVB staff are developing a tradeshow servicing group, under the leadership of Wayne Chappell, the CVB’s vice president of tradeshow relations and portfolio sales. Since Ortale’s return, Houston has hosted the Latin Grammys and the Society of American Travel Writers. It also has established an office in Washington, D.C.
According to Doug Ducate, president of the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, Ortale is the real deal. “Having first met him as a young man at the HCVB, I have watched him learn, grow and mature, with a total focus on the importance of meetings, conventions, tourism and special events to a destination,” Ducate said. “He is a 'customer’s man,’ always able to understand and appreciate how the customer sees situations and what is important to them, and not how some textbook or marketing guru says it should be.”
J. Stephen Perry
President and CEO
New Orleans Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau
For many years, New Orleans’ Cajun-style food, lively jazz, hospitable people and world-famous French Quarter were all it took to draw convention and tradeshow attendees who wanted to have a unique experience.
In fact, until the summer of 2005, the city attracted so many large tradeshows it was ranked No. 7 on the TSW 200 the following year.
All that changed when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in August 2005, exacting a price of more than $1 billion from the convention and tourism industry.
Several events were canceled and postponed as the city struggled to get back on its feet. The person who has led the charge to rebuild the remnants of the once-booming tradeshow industry is J. Stephen Perry.
“New Orleans is a stronger destination because of Stephen Perry’s vision, passion, command of industry issues and the tireless work of his team,” said Steve Pettus, 2009 chairman of the board of the NOMCVB.
Perry said, so far, one of the highlights of his tenure at the bureau has been the rebuilding of the hospitality industry in New Orleans.
“We have known better than anyone the full power of our industry as we lifted the city onto our shoulders and kick-started the economic resurgence of New Orleans,” he added. “We not only brought our industry back before any other, (but also) we have made it better than it was before.”
Perry’s reach goes beyond just New Orleans as well, with posts on the boards of several organizations, such as Destination Marketing Assn. Intl., U.S. Travel Assn. and the U.S. Travel and Tourism Board to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
He said he’s proud of many of his accomplishments at the bureau, chief among them recently scoring the Men’s and Women’s Final Fours in college basketball and the Super Bowl, as well as establishing the “We’re Jazzed You’re Here” program to welcome major customers to the city.
Perry added he has even more goals for the future, including acquiring the funding to do the kind of “high-end creative marketing that New Orleans deserves” and preparing the city to “explode out of this awful recession.”
Rossi Ralenkotter
President and CEO
Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority
If there were a king in the CVB world, then Rossi Ralenkotter would likely wear the crown, since he runs the bureau in the No. 1 tradeshow city in the United States.
He is, by all accounts, the consummate leader, someone always ready to let anyone who will listen know why Las Vegas is the place they should hold their event.
“The LVCVA is the premier organization in destination marketing, and I get to go to work every day and promote the most dynamic destination in the world,” Ralenkotter said.
Chuck Bowling, executive vice president of Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino and LVCVA board member, said of Ralenkotter, “He’s invested decades of time and energy into this community and has been a key leader in the growth of this city.”
Ralenkotter has seen a lot during his time at the bureau, having started as a research analyst 36 years ago and risen through the ranks to his current position.
“His leadership is grounded on constant customer research to make sure we offer the experiences that our customers are looking for and is proactive in industry issues that impact our industry and our city,” Bowling said.
One of those issues has been the steep drop in events held in Las Vegas since the beginning of this year because of the economic downturn and misperceptions about the meetings industry.
Ralenkotter has been front and center in the call to action to everyone in the tradeshow and meetings industry to come together and let government leaders know what’s at stake if things continue to decline.
“As a CVA executive, it is our job to continue to promote our destination and develop new markets,” Ralenkotter said. “As a travel industry executive, it is also our job to make sure the industry is properly understood and gets the credit it deserves as an important part of our industry.”
Even though he’s been in Las Vegas a long time, the thrill doesn’t seem to have worn off. “One of (my) greatest pleasures is watching visitors experience the destination for the first time,” Ralenkotter said.
Tim Roby
President and CEO
Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau
In 2006, for the first time in several years, Chicago lost its status as host to the second most Tradeshow Week 200 shows. The Chicago Tribune ran a story under the headline, “Chicago Losing Ground in Convention Battle.”
Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau President and CEO Tim Roby enlarged that newspaper page, hung it on the wall and told his staff to “hold their heads high.” In 2008, Chicago did return to its previous status as the most popular big tradeshow town after Las Vegas – and Roby had a lot do with that.
Almost the second he walked through the door in February 2006, Roby went to work with one program after another, many of them the kinds of things that had never been done before in Chicago.
“He seems to be listening,” said Pam Henry, director of conferences and exhibitions at the Water Environment Federation, which organizes WEFTEC. “Through Tim, they’ve given us definite dates through 2021. That’s not the way Chicago used to do it.”
John Patronski, the executive vice president at GES Exposition Services who just wrapped us his term as chairman of the Chicago CTB, agreed.
“Tim’s gone through a pretty pragmatic process of what needs to be done,” Patronski said. “He’s always looking for new things to do.”
Those things include a “Sweet Deals Chicago” program that offers exclusive deals to groups of as few as 10; “Times Like These Call for a City Like Ours” that encourages Chicago-based companies to keep their meetings in town; and multiple customized programs to draw a specific show or convention’s attendees and, in some cases, exhibitors to the city.
It all seems to be working – in both the long and short term. Roby recently landed the Natl. Assn. of Realtors Conference & Expo for 2017, but he also found a place at the last minute for the American Wind Energy Assn.’s Windpower Conference & Exhibition, which ran in June, when it realized it had sold too many booths for the venue it had planned on in another city.
Dennis Roche
President
Positively Cleveland
Back in 2003, when Dennis Roche was first approached with the proposition of heading up his hometown convention and visitors bureau, it had to be a labor of love. While the rest of the United States was recovering from the post-2001 recession, Cleveland and Ohio were … well … still waiting. At that point, the city had an aging, antiquated Cleveland Convention Center and one real draw for visitors, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
However, by the end of last year, the new, improved and renamed bureau, Positively Cleveland, had boosted its bookings by 60 percent, selling 75,000 more room nights than the year before – and that was even before Roche and his staff were absolutely sure they’d eventually have a new convention center.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson lauded Roche for his success in attracting meetings and convention business – “Dennis Roche has accompanied me on trips to France and Italy and has done an exemplary job of informing our audiences of what Cleveland has to offer,” Jackson said – but Roche’s real success has come in remaining the irresistible force that kept moving the Cleveland Medical Mart through what seemed to outsiders like an impossible maze of political and financial obstacles.
The end result? A new 300,000 square foot convention center, with an accompanying 100,000 sq. ft. medical mart should be in place by 2013.
The long process of putting all the pieces together had many who were unfamiliar with the way Cleveland works scratching their heads. Apparently not Roche, however.
Prior to moving to what came to be known as Positively Cleveland six years ago, Roche was COO of the Greater Cleveland Growth Assn. Even before that, he played multiple roles in local government, having gone to both high school and college in Cleveland.
With the final approval in place and construction scheduled to begin on the medical mart next year, Roche and his staff finally have something to sell – beginning in 2013.
Until then, he said, “we just have to work a little harder to court groups that are a perfect fit.”
Gary Sain
President and CEO
Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau
Although Orlando hasn’t had the same scale of cancellations that Las Vegas has, the economic woes have touched the destination that boasts the Happiest Place on Earth.
More than 100-plus meetings, mostly serving the financial sector, canceled during this year’s first quarter, with an estimated $25 million to $30 million in economic impact lost.
That hasn’t kept the city’s most enthusiastic cheerleader, Orlando CVB President and CEO Gary Sain, from promoting the destination and adding his voice to others advocating on behalf of the industry.
“Gary has brought a new vision and marketing discipline to the promotion of Orlando. Besides being a great marketer with foresight and creativity, he is also an excellent communicator and consensus builder,” said Paul Tang, chairman-elect of the Orlando CVB and vice president and managing director of the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress. “He pulls all parties together and fosters teamwork toward a common goal, the continued success of Orlando as a top leisure and convention business destination.”
Sain said his biggest challenge during the two years he’s headed the CVB has been managing expectations.
“We have many stakeholder groups representing the political sector, private industry, the community, our members, our customers and our overall industry,” he added. “Informing and educating each group is essential. Balancing the CVB’s transparency with our competitive position is essential”
One development during Sain’s tenure has been the influx of infrastructure improvements, including a new convention center hotel, the Hilton Orlando, scheduled to open this summer. The Peabody Orlando, also near the Orange County Convention Center, is in the middle of an expansion that will add 750 guest rooms, for a total of 1,641, slated for completion in winter 2010 or spring 2011.
Sain said these types of improvements continue to be part of Orlando’s future as a leading tradeshow destination.
“We will continue to differentiate ourselves from a marketing and servicing perspective by helping our customers grow their events,” he added. “We are keenly aware the meeting and tradeshow professional has many destinations to choose from. Our job is to continue to aggressively tell our brand story, consistently deliver on our brand promise and exceed the expectations of our customers.”
Butch Spyridon
President
Nashville (Tenn.) Convention & Visitors Bureau
With the Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame and historic recording studios – plus it’s the city where Elvis Presley recorded more than 300 songs during his career – Nashville, Tenn., really lives up to its Music City moniker.
But it was little more than a nickname for the city – until Butch Spyridon got his way.
He’s been president of the Nashville CVB since 1991, and the guiding force behind the citywide branding effort in 2004 that adopted Music City as Nashville’s trademark.
“Butch has been a visionary leader in the hospitality industry and the city of Nashville,” said Tim DuBois, former Nashville CVB board chair and president of Tim DuBois Entertainment. “He was a driving force in unifying the music, hospitality and business communities in successfully expanding and embracing the Music City brand. We look forward to his continued success as the city moves toward a new downtown convention center in 2013.”
It’s that new $635 million Music City Center, with 470,000 square of exhibit space and 108,000 sq. ft. of meeting space slated to open in early 2013, that Spyridon is most proud of.
“We’ve been working on that project for almost 10 years,” he added. “It’s very gratifying. It’s only at the point it’s at because the community and the leadership has recognized the importance of the industry.”
Spyridon said he’s also proud of the community’s recognition of the value of the industry and its importance to the local economy, which has helped the CVB get involved in many citywide initiatives, including recruiting the NFL team, the Tennessee Titans, to Nashville.
“We’re at the table for most major community-wide (initiatives),” he added. Under his leadership, Nashville’s hospitality industry has become a $4 billion industry, Music City’s second largest.
While rising to the challenge of serving a broad constituency is a challenge Spyridon identified, he’s looking to the future.
His next step? “Opening the doors of the Music City Center and making sure it opens at record levels,” Spyridon said.
It’s on its way: The center already has booked 12 organizations with 21 events into the new Music City Center. That’s more than 207,300 room nights, and the center hasn’t even broken ground yet.
Don Welsh
President and CEO
Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Assn.
By the time Don Welsh stepped into the top leadership post at the Indianapolis CVA last August, the city already was in a good position.
The $725 million Lucas Oil Stadium opened that month, featuring 183,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit space, plus 12 meeting rooms with 13,000 sq. ft. It’s the home of the Indianapolis Colts, the site of the 2010 NCAA Men’s Final Four, the 2011 NCAA Women’s Final Four and the 2012 Super Bowl.
Not only that, the city’s Indiana Convention Center already was in the midst of an expansion that will nearly double its size when completed in December 2010, with 566,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space. The hotel inventory is increasing, with 4,700 rooms to be connected to the center, and the Indianapolis Intl. Airport had some updates.
“I think I arrived here right at the next level of the maturity of the destination,” Welsh said.
The center’s expansion already has led to some large tradeshow bookings for the new space once it’s done, including The Work Truck Show & Natl. Truck Equipment Assn. Annual Convention, ranked No. 123 on the 2009 TSW 200, and the American Assn. of Diabetes Educators Annual Meeting & Exhibition.
Welsh said he feels like it’s his job in Indianapolis to spearhead the changes and opportunities that are coming down the pipeline.
“Don has made a tremendous positive impact in his short time as president (and) CEO at the ICVA,” said Phil Ray, general manager of the Omni Severin Hotel, president of the Greater Indianapolis Hotel & Lodging Assn. and ICVA board member. “His passion is incredible and his enthusiasm is contagious. He is providing outstanding leadership as we transition Indianapolis to a Tier I convention city.”
Welsh said his biggest accomplishment so far has been being able to tell – and have his staff tell – a compelling story about the destination.
“It’s become clear to a lot of people … the significance conventions have for our entire state, not just Indianapolis,” he added.
Next up for Welsh and Indianapolis is getting the hotels and convention center expansion online and in use.
“I think the most important thing is we really need to absorb the new supply,” Welsh said.
Jim Wood
President and CEO
Louisville (Ky.) Convention & Visitors Bureau
When it was clear the four-time Tradeshow Week Fastest 50 winner All Baby & Child’s ABC Kids had outgrown the Las Vegas Convention Center, its home since 2001, it wasn’t long before the announcement came that it would move in 2011 to the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Ky.
Face it: Not all that many shows outgrow venues in Las Vegas and expand to Louisville, but a lot of the reason for ABC Kids’ move had to do with Jim Wood, who’s headed the Louisville CVB since 2003, and the team backing him up that included hotel partners, the Kentucky State Fair Board and Mayor Jerry Abramson.
The show looked at several cities, but Louisville went above and beyond the others by accommodating the show in terms of dates, rates and hospitality, according to Larry Schur, the show’s manager.
“What we offered the show was a community that really appreciated them taking a look at us,” Wood said. “We offer them some tremendous service from our staff.”
He added the same approach would be taken for all potential conventions and tradeshows he’s set his sights on. That may be why the city currently has a stable rate for bookings for the year, even in the midst of the economic downturn.
“We’re not seeing decline in the number of meetings booked for us, and we’re seeing just a slight uptick in the number of leads of businesses interested in Louisville for coming years,” Wood said.
According to Michael Grisanti, immediate past chairman of the Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau Commission, Wood is one of the visionaries in the industry, who continually raises the bar and challenges his team to reach new heights in their work.
“He facilitates high-level discussions about how the LCVB can best position itself to capitalize on the rapidly evolving market,” Grisanti said. “He is also very quick on his feet when market conditions change. He analyzes the data and rapidly responds with a thoughtful change of course.”
Currently, Wood is working to elevate the city’s image nationally as a premier meetings destination. He also is developing a leisure promotion campaign that included a 12-city tour and travel information kiosks in several locations. “It’s a very bold initiative,” Wood said.
