CVB Travel: CVB promotes city's virtues to meeting planners

Susan Wade is the public relations manager with the Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau.

A group of meeting planners from across the country are scheduled to tour Springfield April 30-May 2, with the Convention & Visitors Bureau staff serving as tour guides.

The meeting planners, representing about 15 groups, will tour the Springfield Exposition Center construction site, hotel meeting space, attractions and other locations.

The point of the tour is to familiarize the meeting planners with Springfield and to encourage them to bring conventions to the city, which benefits its travel industry restaurants, hotels, retailers and attractions that employ hundreds of people.

"I would like to see each of these meeting planners book their convention in Springfield," said CVB Sales Director Dana Maugans. "None of these groups have ever met in Springfield before. This would be new business."

Familiarization tours are just one tactic the bureau uses to book groups and events in Springfield. Attending trade shows, researching databases to qualify groups and making hundreds of sales calls year round are other methods.

It's been about three years since the CVB organized a tour for a large group of meeting planners. Despite sponsorships and assistance from the area's travel-related businesses, the tours are expensive and time-consuming for CVB staff.

A familiarization tour for meeting planners was planned for fiscal year 2001-02, but due to declines in leisure travel after the terrorist attacks in 2001, the bureau instead dedicated funding and time to an additional marketing campaign encouraging leisure travel to the city.

Though some parts of the country are still feeling the negative impact of the terrorist attacks, Springfield's travel industry has recovered and the bureau dedicated funding again to a tour for meeting planners.

"Now that Wonders of Wildlife is open and with the expo center in Jordan Valley Park opening in September, Springfield has more to offer than ever before," said CVB Executive Director Tracy Kimberlin. "We want meeting planners to see what a great place our city is for meetings and conventions."

Missy Handyside, sales director at Clarion Hotel, said the bureau conducting a tour for meeting planners in 2003 is great news because it likely will result in new business that will benefit hotels and other travel-related businesses across the city.

"We have to overcome some heavy competition in the state of Missouri this year, and we have a lot offer," Handyside said.

Besides showcasing the city for meeting planners, the bureau also conducts tours for journalists and encourages them to produce travel features about the city that will boost tourism.

Travel and tourism is one of Springfield's major industries, providing employment for more than 5,000 people. It is estimated that 2.3 million overnight visitors annually spend $526.2 million in Springfield $680 per party or $91 per person per day.

The Convention and Visitors Bureau operates on a $2.1 million budget. About $1 million is from the city's lodging tax and the bureau annually applies for state grants of about $450,000 from the Division of Tourism's Cooperative Marketing Program.

Advertising sales and other revenue-generating programs provide the remainder of the bureau's funding.