CVBs: A Meeting Planner’s Secret Weapon

If an organization offered to help you with your client’s meeting or incentive program for free and perhaps even contribute up to $20,000 toward your group’s transportation costs, would you ignore it?

Surprisingly, thousands of meeting planners and travel agents overlook just such a resource — convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs).

“CVBs are a free pair of hands to assist you, providing expertise without charge,” said Bonnie Wallsh, CMP, CMM, a meeting management consultant and trainer, and chief strategist at Bonnie Wallsh Associates LLC. Addressing travel sellers during a recent training seminar, Wallsh noted that CVBs provide a variety of services for meetings as small as 10 room nights and sometimes assist with programs that don’t even include meeting rooms.

Cost Savings: CVBs also provide meeting planners with invaluable information on cost savings, from identifying the most cost-effective season for a visit to information on last-minute cancellations where short-notice meetings might pick up discounted remnant space. They can also advise planners about booking patterns — how some cities like Chicago and New York might be slow during weekends — and times when space might be at a premium, including major sporting events and political conventions.

CVBs have a wealth of information to share, from green travel and voluntourism options to the best venues for off-site activities. “They know about festivals, art exhibits, and other events that might tie into your meeting objectives and inspire attendance,” she said.

Marketing Assistance: CVBs can help planners build attendance and social networking for an event by creating micro-sites with links to sleeping room reservations, tours, and useful customized information. They will help with promotion, and through road shows, they can bring information about their destination to your doorstep in the form of “a reverse familiarization trip,” she said.

Plus, if you know about the destination far enough in advance, they can participate in the prior year’s meeting, perhaps sponsoring a meal or reception in order to whet participants’ appetite for a visit to their destination the following year. “They get the excitement building,” she said. Some CVBs will also provide promotional materials, imagery, discount coupons and email blasts.

Services and Incentives: Wallsh described many services she has seen offered by CVBS, from special surveys to help planners identify activities that would resonate with attendees “so you can customize your program based on participants’ interests” to weekly video podcasts that educate clients on a destination.”

Some also offer economic incentives. The Greater Wilmington Convention & Visitors Bureau recently offered $20,000 toward transportation costs for meetings with a 100-room night minimum. 

Some CVBs provide planners with site inspections for themselves and their clients, including air fare; develop custom-built Google maps for meetings showing all the points of interest specific to a client’s event; and provide use of housing and conference registration using programs like MeetingMax and Passkey. Some might send out e-newsletters with up-to-date information on their location, and others may create attendance-building flyers or participate in airport meet-and-greet services with custom-made signage, on-site registration staffing and housing management. They can also serve as a liaison with the local government when permits, additional security, and risk management information is needed.

“If you don’t ask, you’ll never know,” she said. “What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

Misperceptions: Many planners have misconceptions about the role CVBs play in meetings and incentive programs. Among the most common: planners have to pay the CVBs for their help or offer kickbacks to their members, they are only membership-driven, or that they will only help with citywide meetings. Wallsh said that even if a CVB is membership-driven (and you should ask); they will still distribute your queries to non-members if their current membership doesn’t fit the bill.

“They’re interested in establishing the relationship with you so you’ll bring meetings in the future,” she said. She also said that using a third-party meeting planner or the national sales office of a hotel doesn’t preclude the use of the CVB. “Host hotels may have limited knowledge, not a full perspective,” she said.

Problems to Avoid: Wallsh said that the biggest problems CVBs face in working with meeting and event planners is a lack of communication (they prefer it in writing), too little information, and being brought into the process too late. “Approach them in the initial site-selection process to take full advantage of what they have to offer,” she said. “You won’t get perks like site inspections if you come to them with already-signed contracts.”

The most important thing in working with a CVB is to provide an in-depth Request for Proposal (RFP), which will then be distributed to all of the properties that might fit the meeting planner’s criteria. Prioritize your needs, said Wallsh, separating “Must Haves” from “Nice to Haves.”

Be a Professional: Finally, said Wallsh, fulfill your professional responsibilities to the CVB. If you do not choose their destination, write and let them know why and what they could have done differently to secure the business. Provide post-conference reports to the CVB you do use so they know how they fared. And don’t burn bridges: it’s a small industry where people move around a lot and you never know when you might be using the same personnel in a different capacity.