From the Times-Picayune: CONVENTION CENTS Meeting facilities around the country are making deals to land conference business. Should New Orleans play along?
If you've got the flexibility to move your event around, times couldn't be better.
Some excerpts:
To better compete with other cities, officials from hotels, the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau say they'd like to create a deal-closing fund that could be used to offer financial inducements to lure new groups to New Orleans. No specific proposal is on the table at this point, but hospitality leaders agree that such a fund, which some prefer to call a "marketing" fund or an "incentive" fund, could help New Orleans land a bigger share of the convention business.
When New Orleans loses a convention, it's generally because another city has offered $100,000 to $150,000 in incentives. And those conventions might generate tens of millions of dollars in spending and, therefore, tax revenue, which would more than offset the cost of the inducement, Wandfluh said.
Michael Hughes, director of research at Tradeshow Week, a leading convention industry publication, said deal-closing funds are now common. Hughes surveyed trade shows and found that 29 percent have been offered free exhibit space in at least one venue in the past two years. Another Tradeshow Week survey of convention bureau and convention center executives found that 41 percent have been offering more exhibition hall discount rates since 2001.
Also note the part that says Orlando gave the DMA $200,000 because the DMA felt "insulted" by an article on telemarketing published in the Orlando Sentinel. That alone probably paid for DMA's PR agency for the next couple of years.
The article doesn't say anything about shows with long-term contracts at one venue. I wonder, are they being rewarded for staying?
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Speaking of incentives, since the article mentions my current hometown, had I been an attendee at RCMA in Pittsburgh, I would've skipped The Lion King in favor of a Primanti's sandwich and a couple of cold Iron Citys. Good thing the opera Dead Man Walking hadn't yet opened when RCMA was up here. They RCMA would have never come back.
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