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Destination Management Firms Still at Odds With Convention Center

by Connie Lewis

The destination management firms that protested the San Diego Convention Center Corp.’s decision to give preferred status to a competitor in December are not letting go. They continue to argue that the process was flawed, and they are fighting back.

One protester, Fabienne Hanks, owner and vice president of sales and marketing for the Meeting Manager, said the firms have declined to buy ads in a new agency guide, and are steering their clients to local meeting and event halls that compete with the San Diego Convention Center.

She also said they have stopped a long-standing tradition of contributing money and manpower to help lure prospective convention business , all in a show of force hoped to eat into the bottom line of the nonprofit agency, which manages and markets the Convention Center.

Destination management companies make their money acting as local arms for out-of-town meeting planners by arranging tours, parties, transportation and ancillary events connected to conventions.

“Six of us have mutually agreed not to participate in the guide,” said Hanks.

Aside from the Meeting Manager, Hanks said the companies protesting the decision are: PRA, Access Destination Services, the Event Team, Destination Concepts Inc., and TBA Global Events , the latter two of which are production companies whose specialties include providing d & #233;cor, lighting, floral arrangements, staging and talent for meetings and events.

In December, the Convention Center Corp. awarded a five-year preferred status contract to Quantum Productions in exchange for a commission from business referrals. The fees range from 5 percent to 15 percent for various services.

Hanks said that since the destination management companies spend about $5,000 each or $30,000 altogether to advertise in a similar guide that the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau has produced for about 15 years, they likely would have spent the same amount to advertise in the Convention Center Corp.’s guide. The issue to be released by ConVis in December, the “2007 Official Meeting & Convention Planner’s Guide,” will be published by San Diego Magazine.

Sal Giametta, a spokesman for ConVis, said that ad commitments for its guide total $573,655, and that the sales campaign closes Oct. 4. ConVis is a nonprofit organization charged with telling the city’s story to the traveling public.

Trying To Make A Statement

Hanks predicted that by not advertising in the Convention Center’s guide, the San Diego destination management and production companies, which are among the county’s oldest and largest, will send a clear message to its readers.

“My opinion is that the absence of support from the DMCs (destination management companies) will make the guide appear to be less credible,” Hanks said. However, she also said the new guide “puts an unreasonable demand on small-business owners to replicate our marketing investment to support the two entities.”

“The San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau and the San Diego Convention Center Corp. should be working in unison to maximize marketing dollars and messages,” Hanks added.

Since the privately held firms do not reveal proprietary information, she couldn’t say how much business or the value of the business that they have steered away from the Convention Center. While there is no exact tally on the money and help devoted to marketing and promotional support for the Convention Center Corp., including reduced-cost services and hosting out-of-town meeting planners on familiarization tours, she said it has amounted to “hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years.”

Steve Johnson, the Convention Center Corp.’s vice president of public affairs, said that by declining to advertise in its meeting planner guide the destination management firms “are cutting off their nose to spite their face.”

If they really feel disadvantaged by another firm having preferred status, it would be in their best interest to advertise in the new guide and “get their name in front of an audience that would use their services,” he added.

He declined to cite the revenue goal for the publication, which is scheduled to go to print in January. Nor would he say how much has been collected. The guide has not been given a name as yet.

Johnson said that the ConVis guide is focused more on luring leisure and business travelers who come to town to attend meetings and events within hotels. The Convention Center Corp.’s guide, on the other hand, will concentrate more on providing information useful to people planning events inside the facility itself. Additionally, it will consolidate information that was formerly handed out separately, such as floor plans, loading docks and truck marshaling areas, rules and regulations.

“We market and sell the building,” Johnson said. “They (ConVis) market and sell the destination. They have a broader focus, however there is a growing effort on both parts to collaborate and work to benefit the destination.”

Whether that collaboration might lead to consolidating the two meeting planner guides is uncertain.

Not Making An Impact

Asked whether the agency was feeling the pinch from the destination managers’ protest, Johnson replied that it is not.

“We’ve had record (hotel) room night sales for future business,” he said, adding that the Convention Center’s space has been sold out for large-scale events during 2007 and 2008. Only a limited amount of space for smaller events remains.

During the agency’s fiscal year that ended in June, it booked a record 88 future conventions, representing 1.06 million nightly hotel room bookings, the highest since the 2.6 million-square-foot Convention Center doubled in size in 2001. The engagements are booked through 2020 and will attract a total of 632,160 out-of-town visitors.

“We’re selling better than we’ve ever sold and will continue to do this,” Johnson emphasized.

Hanks said that the meeting planners have launched an investigation into the legality and ethicality of the preferred production company contract, but she declined to be more specific. Several sources have said, however, that they thought the agency had made up its mind on the company with which it would contract before it requested proposals.

Johnson dismissed that notion, saying, “They had the opportunity to compete (for the contract) and they chose not to.”

In November, the destination management companies banded together and refused to bid on the contract, saying that if one stood to gain more business from the agency than the others, it would jeopardize the cooperative nature of the marketing they all did to lure business to the Convention Center.

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