Conventions and Expositions: Economic Benefits
Cities depend on a number of different sources for the revenues required to fund public services, finance governmental budgets, pay for education, and initiate development and/or infrastructure improvement projects. One lucrative source of such revenues is found within the hospitality industry. Specifically, cities that are capable of attracting conventions, expositions, trade shows, corporate and organizational seminars and workshops, and similar gatherings often find that their revenues are enhanced through several different sources (Mather, 2001).
Cities benefit from the revenues generated by these large gatherings in several ways (Suggs, 1997). Visitors fill hotel and motel rooms, paying a "bed tax" which accrues to city coffers. Visitors also dine in local restaurants, shop (and pay sale taxes) in local retail establishments, and use a host of other facilities, including city transportation, and airports. Car taxes for rental vehicles add to these city revenues, while the increased income of service sector and retail workers also often adds up to increased city taxes. In essence, as Suggs (1997) has commented, conventions are big business and the competition for these events can be fierce.
Given this general background, the purpose of the present report is to examine strategies and techniques for attracting conventions, expositions, and other large scale meetings or events to a city as part of an overall strategy of increasing tax revenues. It must be recognized, says Sears (2003), that this is a hyper-competitive sector and, as significantly today, a sector that has been negatively impacted by declining business travel in a post-September 11, 2001 domestic economy.
To attract large-scale convention and exposition business, many American cities have aggressively pursued a program of constructing or expanding convention and meeting centers or arenas capable of c...