Rachel Wimberly

Indy Gets a Boost

I have written several stories in the past year about the struggles convention and visitors bureaus have had to endure with visitor attendance dropping in most locales, resulting in falling bed-tax funds.

In turn, a lot of bureaus have had to cut staff, institute furlough days, cut salaries and bonuses and slash marketing and advertising budgets.

It’s a Catch-22 situation, though, when a city’s bureau is tasked with promoting the destination, and their funds to do so are diminished.

Money has been so tight that a lot of cities have had to not only cut back on their travel to industry meetings where face time with tradeshow and meeting planners is crucial, but also, in a time when they should be more aggressive than ever, they’ve had to curtail marketing schemes that could draw people in.

Even with the difficult economic environment, the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Assn. recently had a very lucky break when it was given a $5.4 million grant from the Dean and Barbara White Family Foundation for marketing the city as a convention and leisure destination.

The grant was given by a local hotel developer that has high stakes in seeing the city succeed. Dean White, founder of White Lodging, the developer of the soon-to-open $425 million Marriott Complex, also has the existing Indianapolis Marriott Downtown.

With a few thousand rooms to fill, White certainly sees the value in ensuring the bureau is able to reach out to groups to fill them.

Other cities around the United States surely have developers who also have invested significant sums in nearby projects hoping to capitalize on the success of a busy convention center.

Maybe some of them, too, will realize that the bureaus can’t do their jobs without needed resources and consider helping them out to benefit everyone who’s in the game.

Posted by Rachel Wimberly on February 1, 2010 | Comments (0)