RX for meeting biz health
CVB’s are increasingly seeking medical help for their meeting market — that means aggressively courting and partnering with local health care resources.
That is especially the case for cities fortunate enough to have name-brand medical facilities located at their backdoor.
"We are very lucky because we have Mayo Clinic right here," said Brad Jones, executive director of the Rochester (Minnesota) CVB. "We simply try to allow ourselves to be a go-between between a meeting planner and them. We try to tap into speakers and research projects that would tie into the event or meeting."
Jones says about one-third of the city’s convention business comes from the medical segment, but "if you look at total visitors to the city, it is 70 percent of our business. We welcome about 2.5 million visitors per year, so 70 percent is a big number."
Another city with a healthy dose of medical resources is Cleveland, site of the Cleveland Clinic.
Stephanie Stiggers-Smith, national sales manager for Positively Cleveland, says the CVB often partners with the clinic to bring in meetings.
"We usually have them support us in our advocacy to bring meetings here," she said. She added it is common for medical professionals from Cleveland Clinic to meet with meeting planners to attract them to the city. "It helps us to sell meetings."
For Houston, a major draw is the Texas Medical Center, which "represents 47 different medical entities and 14 are hospitals," says Ken Middleton, vice president of convention sales for the Greater Houston CVB.
"For so many years it was oil and ‘what are you doing with the Gulf.’ Now we have an outstanding vertical beyond the energy conversation," he said.
With an important local resource like the Texas Medical Center, Middleton says planners don’t have to fly speakers in from all over the world; they can find them in Houston — along with research specialists.
"If a conference is here, chances are there are people who wrote white papers on what you are looking for that live in Houston," he said.
By David Wilkening
David
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