Your section on Meetings & Conventions [October 18, 1999] was very well-researched — and provided a much-needed perspective on this vitally important function in regional positioning and marketing. Beyond the statistics and comparisons, I found your discussion of strategy particularly helpful. I'd like to emphasize some points.

For most cities, the Convention & Visitors Bureaus book events 18 months and further out. So, as I write this, exhibit space and hotel room blocks for big industry trade shows for April 2001 and up to three years after are "current." It's highly competitive and depends on having a home team of hotels, convention facilities and a host of other suppliers unified in the pursuit of new business. It also means having detailed intelligence on a variety of markets, the ability to make good plans from that foundation, and solid delivery through a talented and aggressive sales and operational force in the field — exactly what our team in Detroit is and should be doing.

As a former board member of the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, I'm impressed with our Detroit Bureau. CEIR, the leading source of data for our industry, provides the following numbers as frame of reference. Of the 110 million people who attended trade shows in 1997, 70 percent were in professional management and 71 percent had authorization and/or purchasing authority.

I for one want to be behind a CVB that attracts these people to our area, as opposed to any of a number of competing destinations. And we should back our bureau in its clear positioning of our area to these decision makers — leveraging the positive on-the-ground experience they should have with us while here. That's how we motivate them to return for people resources, facility relocations and cultural offerings.

Together we’ll succeed.