United Front

The cities of (from left) Baltimore; Sacramento, Calif.; and Fort Worth, Texas, have pooled resources to form an effective marketing alliance.

Lately, some rather diverse and far-flung American cities are being mentioned in the same breath -- and at first glance, the groupings don’t seem to make much sense. Consider the following:

* Hartford, Conn.; Madison, Wis.; and Spokane, Wash.

* Milwaukee; Pittsburgh; and Portland, Ore.

* Baltimore; Fort Worth, Texas; and Sacramento, Calif.

* San Jose, Calif., and Virginia Beach, Va.

Where these easily can be mistaken for head-to-head, full-combat city rivalries, they actually represent arm-in-arm marketing alliances. And they are springing up across the country as increasing numbers of convention and visitor bureaus see the benefit of forging partnerships and pooling resources to present themselves as a package option.

“As the competition grows more fierce, you have to look for innovative ways to bring groups to your destination, and collaboration is just that,” says Krista Flanagan, vice president of sales and marketing for the Greater Madison Convention & Visitors Bureau, which spent eight months forging its alliance with Hartford and Spokane.

The concept is not exactly new, but it is still a rarity among bureaus that have long operated under the competitive business model of hyping only the attributes of their own destination. In 2003, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Portland were the first to try the partnership approach, an alliance that since has yielded impressive results in terms of marketing reach and business booked.

“In 2007, the partnership really clicked,” says Michael Smith, vice president, convention sales, for Travel Portland (formerly called the Portland Oregon Visitors Association). “We’ve got five groups actively considering us and one, for the first time, that has booked all three cities, which we are absolutely thrilled about.” Snagged was the Madison-based Society for the Study of Reproduction, which has contracted to hold its annual meeting in 2009 in Pittsburgh, followed by Milwaukee in 2010 and Portland in 2011.

Common ground

Similar size (population-wise), hotel room inventory, convention center exhibit space, air access and overall destination appeal are some of the things CVB heads take into consideration when scouting for potential city partners. A comfortable working relationship among respective sales teams is another key component.

Take, for example, the case of Hartford, Madison and Spokane. All three of these river cities are major university centers, and all have invested significantly in economic development in the past five to seven years. Spokane alone has spent almost $5 billion in a downtown renaissance, while Hartford has plowed more than $1 billion into its revitalization since 2004.

What’s more, the cities’ air access has grown exponentially. Madison has spent $65 million to accommodate more direct flights, while Hartford’s Bradley International Airport has grown from a suburban backwater airstrip into one of the nation’s fastest-growing airports, with direct flights to Europe.

Likewise, while Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Portland might seem to have little in common, their metropolitan footprints are quite similar. Each city is in an educational corridor with several universities and colleges within a 30-mile radius of downtown, and environmental sustainability is a priority for each. In fact, both Pittsburgh’s David L. Lawrence and Portland’s Oregon Convention Center are LEED-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Pooling resources

For cities, the benefits of partnerships are many. Among the most compelling:

Strength in numbers. The ability to increase sales manpower virtually overnight is one of the most powerful pluses. While each bureau’s staff members continue to sell their individual destinations, they also plant the seeds of consideration for their partner cities.

“When my team is working with a client, they also are asking, ‘What other cities are you looking at? If you like us, you might want to consider Hartford or Madison,’?” notes Keith Backsen, vice president and director of convention sales for the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau. “It’s a way of hopefully getting our partners on their radar screen.”

The way Portland’s Michael Smith sees it, he gets to have two additional sales teams sell his city without having to pay for the privilege. “We have come to know and like each other so well, that we are able to share with each other what it took to book a particular piece of business, which gives us a leg up on the competition,” he says.

For Al Hutchinson, director of convention sales for the Virginia Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau, the trust factor between his sales team and that of the San Jose Convention & Visitors Bureau translates into intellectual capital.

“It is really like having a built-in think tank,” Hutchinson says. “We get to feed off of each other in terms of best practices, which is very valuable in this industry.”

This past December, after roughly a year and a half of working together, the two bureaus announced their first joint booking -- they will play host to the Alexandria, Va.-based Association of Air Medical Services, which will hold its 2009 Air Medical Transport Conference in San Jose. Virginia Beach will get the event in 2013.

In cahoots (from left): Hartford, Conn.; Spokane, Wash.; and Madison, Wis.

Marketing punch. From a marketing perspective, budgets stretch further, as do the opportunities for audience awareness. In November 2007, the Spokane bureau and Visit Milwaukee teamed up for their first joint-marketing campaign by taking side-by-side booths at a major medical nurses’ association trade show, which had invited potential destinations to participate. Prior to the show, the partners collaborated on a direct-mail piece to tout their cities, and they enticed potential medical planners with a prize drawing.

“It was extremely successful, and it really allowed us to expand our marketing dollars and extend our reach,” says Spokane’s Keith Backsen, who estimates that his CVB typically spends about $350,000 annually to recruit conventions. “Not only were we able to offer nicer giveaways, but we attracted a better-qualified pool of people.”

At their first jointly hosted event, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Portland drew about 30 interested planners. Each city deemed it a rousing success, because individually, they doubted they could have drummed up 10 on their own. Last year’s effort, during the annual meeting of the American Society of Association Executives at the Chicago home of Art Smith, Oprah Winfrey’s private chef, drew a standing-room-only crowd of 180. Today, the partners are more concerned about being able to handle their event’s turnout, instead of worrying if anyone will show up.

“None of us individually has enough money to do what we really want to do in terms of marketing ourselves,” says Smith. “We can’t compete with the parties that huge hotel companies like Starwood throw. So these co-funded events are absolutely beneficial.”

Taking it one step further. Unlike other CVB alliances that rely on the good word of partnering sales teams to push their destinations, Baltimore, Fort Worth and Sacramento have created a distinctly separate three-member sales team to market their coalition, independent of each bureau’s in-house sales staff. It’s an investment Dave DuBois, president and chief executive officer of the Fort Worth Convention & Visitors Bureau, puts at about $150,000 per bureau, annually.

“These three salespeople will be calling on clients whose needs we think fit all three cities,” says Steve Hammond, president and CEO of the Sacramento Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We will then support those sales calls with marketing, advertising and financial incentives, which we are now in the process of developing.”

For Sacramento, adds Hammond, the partnership is an opportunity to build corporate business. “It is an area that we have not been able to really target before, because we have needed to spend our resources on the association market,” he notes. “We are hopeful this will help us gain ground.”

Pluses for planners

It is not only the bureaus that stand to profit from these partnerships. For meeting and convention planners, whose event needs can be met by two or all of the cities within an alliance, there are significant benefits.

One-stop shopping. Not having to explain a convention’s needs over and over again every year to possible host cities is one of the most significant advantages these partnerships offer. “The by-product is a significant reduction in workload,” says Hammond. “The planner will have the ability to talk to one salesperson who can answer questions about all three destinations.”

Indeed, all of the partnerships mentioned above cite cross-selling as a cornerstone to their success.

Financial incentives. Even when working with just one city at a time, there are concessions to be negotiated. Seal a deal for two or three conferences with one entity, and the perks should be even more enticing. Planners might walk away with discounted rental rates for the exhibit hall, city-sponsored receptions, food-and-beverage breaks at the convention center, discounts with member hotels and other suppliers, and more.

“There is no customized list” of such incentives, says DuBois of Fort Worth. “It is something we have to develop for each customer based on their individual needs. But there are definitely all kinds of value-added opportunities to be had.”

Networking. Building a strong, solid working relationship with a destination’s sales representative takes time. It also takes commitment and a certain quantum leap of faith for both parties. According to Al Hutchinson of Virginia Beach, it is the compatible sales teams of CVB partnerships that will benefit planners the most.

“When a client develops a trust factor with one CVB, they know they can lean on that relationship they built,” Hutch-inson notes. “So when that CVB offers a referral to another city, it comes with a certain measure of guarantee that simply must be taken in to account.”