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by Joe Psuik, CFE Please know that this article is from only one person’s point of view. It does not speak for IAAM or for the meetings and convention industry as a whole. This is just one person’s point of view as compared to another person’s point of view. And it deals with point of view, not with person. It bodes well for the various industries, of which public assembly facilities are a part, to sometimes have a dispassionate third party look at those respective industries. Opportunity presents itself, with those looks, for members of the respective industries to read, to study, to ponder and most importantly, to evaluate. So it is with the recent article published under the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institute banner, entitled, “Space Available: The Realities of Convention Centers as Economic Development Strategy.” If you productively labor in the meetings and convention industry, it is well worth your while to carefully read, study, ponder and evaluate this article. Industry partners have responded and are in process with response. The responses have been most professional. So from one lone sole professional in this marvelous industry, I only offer a few professional observations. Meaningful benchmarking occurs over a long period of time. That long period of time will tend to “wash out” anomalies. We all know that in our own facilities. I only ask myself the question as to whether or not the times charted in the referenced article of supposed optimum performance of this industry to the time of supposed downfall is a long enough period of time to truly reflect this industry’s downfall. Is “return to normal” the impetus of this industry in the post-911 era? Are we not truly engaged in the setting of new benchmarks for this industry? Are we not engaged in the setting of new benchmarks for the entire business community? Our friends in Toronto know what it means to set new benchmarks. Our friends in Florida know what it means to set new benchmarks. Public assembly facilities, more specifically, are very much a reflection of the economic times in our municipalities and municipal regions. Municipalities and municipal regions are more often than not a reflection of our nation’s economic times. Did this article look deeply enough into the economic cycles of the municipalities and municipal regions in which the named facilities are located? Would those economic cycles bear any impact to the performance of a particular convention and meeting facility? If there are reduced dollars to effectively target market, would that bear to the performance of a facility? If there are reduced dollars to operate, given that basic municipal costs for basic constituent services also continue to rise, would that mean the elimination of products and/or services from a facility that would have impact to facility performance? Is there deeper investigation due into the economic well-being of a municipality or municipal region before performance of a meeting and convention facility is called out for diminishing performance? Is it really true that meeting and convention facilities will only generate lower level income jobs throughout the municipality; therefore economic impact is reduced? Really? It may have been true at one time that this industry was based upon “build it and they will come.” By any measurement, potential owners of meeting and convention facilities now look carefully at market demand studies to understand not only market demand but market creation. And these potential owners, most often public policy makers, are now and have been looking for what increments of a specific market demand may be influenced by what increment of additional construction. Consultants perform the work as mandated by the owner of the consultant contract. Owners of the data that comes from a consultant contract have the incumbent responsibility to sift through the data and make meaningful decisions. And they do. To make an assumption that this new analysis “…should give local leaders pause in considering public investment into the convention business….” makes short shrift of the careful study and consideration that public policy makers have long been engaged in making such decisions. Regular reporting to public policy makers is the life that operators and managers of public assembly facility managers lead. There is no hiding, no spin, no magic economics that can massage a bottom line – both for the facility and for economic impact. It is what it is. Public policy makers, including Boards of Directors and elected officials, know very well the economics of a meeting and convention facility. Could it be that public policy makers are willing to invest for economic impact and development? Is there inclusion in this study of the urban, or other, development that has been generated as a result of construction or expansion of a meeting and convention facility? Has there been any measurement of the result of those developments - increased sales taxes as a result of additional business that serve both convention delegates and the local constituency, additional business that serves the needs of the meeting and convention industry, additional businesses that serve the needs of those who serve the meeting and convention industry, increased numbers of full time jobs in the community-at-large at multiple levels with health benefits, increased residential areas that draw people to the downtown core, increased transient hotel room rates that likewise provide increased hotel room night taxes, etc., etc.? Is there any consideration for the meeting and convention facility place and presence in the community in which it resides? Does the facility not only draw outside dollars to the community, but does it also perform as a community gathering place? Have public policy makers delivered to the local constituency a facility of place and presence that the constituency could not deliver on its own? Was that part of the program? Do the hotel and other tax revenues that a meeting and convention facility generate do anything to offset the municipality’s general fund or expense burden? Are the public policy makers willing to see these facilities and this industry through an economic cycle to continue to secure that financial offset? We ought to embrace this article. We ought to embrace it so strongly that it sets all of the meeting and convention industry partners and associations into a greater and more collaborative and productive level of insuring that public policy makers are well aware of the “good news” of this industry. That embracing ought to generate an increased level of cohesiveness among industry partners to ensure that the “good news” of this meeting and convention industry is well known and clearly, clearly understood. That embracing ought to generate for each IAAM member the discreet need to stand closely to their respective Boards of Directors and public policy makers – and deliver real time positive and productive results of the public assembly facility in which they labor. Go back to the front of this issue of Facility Manager magazine. Read again Jimmy Earl’s mission for his year of presidency. That’s how it needs to work. And it will.
Joe Psuik, CFE, is senior vice
president/chief operating officer of the San Diego |
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©
2002-2005
International Association of Assembly Managers |
