Cities Spend Billions of Dollars Building and Renovating Massive Convention Centers—Is It Worth It? This is a question someone recently asked new york times article.
According to Skift Meetings research, 22 new conference centers are under construction and 60 new projects at all levels are in the pipeline. Dallas, Austin and Los Angeles are all undergoing major expansions.
The premise is era The fact is, companies are spending less on conferences and attendance is down.
According to the U.S. Travel Association, travelers will spend $119 billion on meetings and event travel in 2023.
This was down from $139.3 billion in 2019.
Additionally, data from STR showed that demand for group rooms in September was comparable to 2019 levels. The pace of future bookings has been well ahead of 2019 for most of this year.
Seven to eight years after booking
Marie Hunter, managing director of conferences, events and experiences for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), said the organization is booking its large events for seven to eight years to ensure the conference center has ideal space. “Even so, we sometimes find that the conference center is fully booked,” she said.
Hunter reports that 2024 will be a record year for IEEE technical conferences, with more than 550,000 attendees expected worldwide. IEEE sponsors more than 2,200 conferences each year.
“For technology shows, we find that attendees want to see the products in person, and exhibitors may even sell to each other and become a community market,” Hunter said.
The IEEE is not the only organization finding it challenging to reserve the space it needs. “Supply is not meeting demand,” said Janet Dell, chief executive of event agency Freeman. “The move-in time is short and they can’t find a date.”
The decision to renovate the conference center was carefully considered. “There is collaboration between cities, states and consultants. Billion-dollar projects are not arbitrary decisions,” said Don Welsh, CEO and president of Destinations International. “Also, planners say you have to step up your game and provide the environment our attendees want, and the convention center is listening.”
Not surprisingly, the industry supports more conferences and promotes potential economic benefits to the city.
Is the conference center expensive?
“The idea that convention centers are money suckers goes against the grain of how they operate and balance the entire ecosystem,” said Trevor Mitchell, president and CEO of the International Association of Venue Managers (IAVM). “When conventions are in When held in town, restaurants, retail stores and restaurants will be affected, not to mention the people employed by these centers.
Kevin Hinton, general manager of group travel for the U.S. Travel Association, agrees. “The ROI of meetings goes far beyond the performance of the convention center. The huge expense goes far beyond the building where the meeting is held,” he said.
Another important factor to consider is the collaboration that occurs when attending meetings in person. “The convention center is an industrial incubator,” said PCMA CEO Sherrif Karamat. As an example, he pointed to five new artificial intelligence conferences created in the wake of the pandemic.
“Forced tourism” is caused by customs. “Conventions are a great way to attract people to a city,” said Craig Davis, president and CEO of Visit Dallas.
His city’s Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center cost $3.5 billion. reconstruction. When completed, the new center will have 170,000 square feet of ballroom space, 260,000 square feet of conference rooms and 800,000 square feet of exhibition space.
Construction began in June and is expected to be completed in 2029.
Conference center helps with crisis
Convention centers can help the community in other ways. During the pandemic, they became hospitals, testing centers and eventually vaccination centres. The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, the first in the nation to be converted into a 1,000-bed hospital, has been transformed into a vaccine distribution center, along with a nursing station and pharmacy.
The San Diego Convention Center was used to house unaccompanied migrant minors for three months. That was in March 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, so no scheduled events were affected. Another, the El Paso Convention Center, will also be transformed into a migrant shelter in December 2022.
Industry associations have the data to prove the importance of convention centers and the entire event ecosystem. According to the Exhibition Industry Council (EIC), global business activities support a total GDP of US$1.5 trillion, making the industry the 13th largest economy in the world.
“The data is out there. We haven’t yet captured the essence of its importance,” said Amy Calvert, EIC president and CEO. “What’s interesting is that the deeper, more purposeful impacts and causes of events need to be part of the stories we tell.”
