Dallas Says It's Not Dull

[KC0KEK]

A funny reminder that cities much bigger than ours suffer their share of insecurities, too.



Dallas' pitch: 'Big D' doesn't mean dull
As conventions get harder to come by, Dallas officials sharpen competitive edge

06/17/2003

By SUZANNE MARTA / The Dallas Morning News

Las Vegas is casinos and showgirls. Orlando has Mickey Mouse and theme parks. In Los Angeles, it's sun and surf. And New York? You name it – Broadway, Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, the rejuvenated Times Square.

In the highly competitive convention trade – more cutthroat than ever, given the continuing economic slump – those tourist attractions have suddenly morphed into business assets.

So what has Dallas' pitch been? Its mid-continent location is convenient to travelers across the country, it has plenty of hotel rooms and the locals are friendly.

All true. But that's not enough anymore as Dallas convention officials take on their hard-charging rivals in fast-growing destinations such as Vegas and Orlando that have assets – both man-made and natural – that North Texas can't hope to duplicate.

So, in a departure from years of tradition, the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau is trying to sharpen the city's competitive edge by focusing its latest marketing campaign on the area's own nightlife and entertainment attractions.

"Dallas has to brag louder," said David DuBois, interim president and chief executive of Dallas-based Meeting Professionals International. "Everyone already knows about the Strip in Las Vegas and the Riverwalk in San Antonio. But how well do meeting planners know about what's in the metroplex?"

The convention bureau's latest literature and advertising – hitting print this summer – will not only stress the newly expanded Convention Center and the city's numerous hotel rooms, they'll also play up the areas where Dallasites play after dark.

The campaign looks beyond the West End – already familiar to regular convention-goers – to seven areas, including Uptown, Main Street-Stone Street in downtown and the West Village project at McKinney and Lemmon avenues.

That diverse approach is critical if Dallas is to succeed in advertising itself as an entertainment destination, said Mr. DuBois, whose company represents clients that spend about $30 billion a year on conventions.

The competition is formidable, he said. Just a few years ago, meeting planners looking to book a city during a popular convention month such as September or October would have only three or four cities to choose from.

"Now, it's more like 10," Mr. DuBois said.

Fun, fun, fun


That's why strong entertainment offerings are critical in the current convention market, where cities are trying to fill a record number of hotel rooms with fewer business travelers.
"Every element of a city's package has to be outstanding," Mr. DuBois said.

Dallas' new marketing effort will affect its advertising's look. Materials that once featured the city's skyline will now show shots from Stone Street's restaurants and shops.

"We need to talk about what's changing in Dallas and what's fun to see and do," said Tom Noonan, the Dallas visitors bureau's vice president of convention sales and service.

Entertainment venues and tourist attractions have been part of convention sales pitches since Orlando became a serious business-meetings competitor in the last decade, said Vince LaRuffa, vice president of convention sales and services for the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau.

"Attractions like Disney World put Orlando on the map," Mr. LaRuffa said.

Orlando is now a convention powerhouse, with 1.1 million square feet of exhibit space, about the same as Dallas. But in September, Orlando's convention center will double in size, making it the second largest in the nation after Chicago's McCormick Place.

'Entertainment capital'


Las Vegas has also leapt into the upper echelon of convention destinations, largely riding on its reputation as the city that never sleeps.
"We're the entertainment capital of the world," said Erika Brandvik, spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Ms. Brandvik said Vegas' popularity among conventioneers has proved important for meeting planners, who regularly get higher attendance at events there than they do in other cities.

That proved true for Irving-based Promotional Products Association International, which brought its annual conventions to Vegas for the first time in January.

For more than a quarter-century, the group held its annual meeting in Dallas, but association officials said their members wanted more entertainment sites and restaurants than they could find in North Texas. The Dallas meetings attracted as many as 20,000 people a year; the 2003 event in Vegas drew about 21,000 – a record.

Dallas' meeting business has lagged in the last three years, mostly because the Convention Center was being renovated. And when the expanded center finally opened last fall, many businesses had slashed travel budgets in response to the slowed economy.

Mr. Noonan is well aware of the toll the slumping economy has taken on the meetings business. Groups that once booked as much as 10 years in advance are now only looking five years out.

And goals for room bookings sold or tentatively requested are proving more difficult to meet.

Part of that is because of increased competition. Las Vegas now has three convention centers the size of Dallas'. And projects such as the Gaylord Opryland Texas Resort and Convention Center, which is scheduled to open next spring in Grapevine, are also providing more competition.

"We never had to compete against Grapevine before," Mr. Noonan said.

Still, there are some positive signs in the future. The Dallas Convention Center is sold out for January through May 2005, Mr. Noonan said.

"I'm not saying these are groups as large as we've gotten in the past, but the exhibit halls have been sold out."

[ShowME]

Dallas is ok but it's just a bigger Kansas City area. Bigger downtown buildings, more pro sports, worse traffic, even higher crime.