CVB developing its new Select Springfield effort

The Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau does more than send out information packets to people interested in visiting the city.

According to CVB Executive Director Tracy Kimberlin, the CVB, which was formed in 1979, is an independent 501 (c) 6 organization that contracts with the city of Springfield on an annual basis to increase overnight travel to the city's hotels and motels.

Increasing overnight travel means bringing more conventions, sponsored by various groups, to Springfield. Dana Maugans, director of sales for the CVB, said what her office does is sell groups on the idea of bringing their conventions here.

"It's just really like any other sales, trying to find out what the needs are of the group. Then, if it's something that we know would work in Springfield, we just continue with it," Maugans said.

She added that the CVB does several things to attract groups from all over the United States. CVB staff researches groups and their convention needs. Also, the CVB is a member of several professional organizations for the convention and meeting planning industry and sends its sales staff members to trade shows.

A new effort is aimed at getting local people more involved in bringing the conventions of groups they're involved with to the city. Maugans said the Select Springfield program has been in the planning stages for several months, but the organization plans to really begin developing it this year.

"It's really a local effort to encourage citizens in the community to bring events that they attend to Springfield," she said. "A lot of conventions have to have a local member to come to your community, especially if it's a social group, such as the Lions Club."

Maugans said although a local chapter or member might not be in charge of planning conventions, having a contact in the city is helpful to the person who is in charge of planning the event.

Maugans said a logo for Select Springfield has not been finalized, but the CVB already has some ideas about how it can accomplish its goals.

"What we're looking at doing with Select Springfield is we're going out into the community and maybe having our booth set up at a faculty meeting over at SMS, for example. We're really trying to develop it this year to where we can use our logo, our title, maybe throw it around a little more and encourage businesses to let us come in and maybe give a presentation on what we do," she said.

Maugans said a long-range goal for Select Springfield is to have ambassadors local people who have brought conventions to town for groups they are involved in who can tell others about the positive aspects of their experiences.

While Maugans and the CVB sales staff may be similar to other salespeople in some aspects of their work, there is one area that is different CVB salespeople don't earn commissions for the groups they help bring to town.

However, Maugans said, the CVB itself gets 2 percent of the city's 4.5 percent lodging tax, so there's still a reward in bringing conventions here.

"Our benefit of selling the group (on the city) is filling the hotel rooms, which then generates sales tax," she said.

Kimberlin, who's been with the CVB for 12 years, said overnight travel to Springfield has increased in recent years. He said he can't do a then-and-now comparison on the number of conventions or convention-related travelers, since the CVB hasn't always broken those numbers down. He said that last year about 20 percent of Springfield's overnight visitors were here for conventions.

Maugans said bringing conventions to Springfield has gotten more competitive in recent years. She said Tan-Tar-A resort in Lake of the Ozarks has been the CVB's main competitor for a long time, but now, because Branson has grown to the point where it can accommodate conventions, it is a competitor as well.