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Put Houston on map with world's great destinations - Houston Chronicle

February 20, 2008 - Posted in Agency, Car Rental, Destinations, Discover Travel, Expedia Travel, Flight Tracker, Hotels, Shows, Tickets, Travel News, Travel business

Houston, the world is taking note. Kiplinger's Personal Finance named Houston the No. 1 city in America in which to live, work and play. The Travel Industry Association of America ranked Houston as the No. 3 destination in the country for leisure market potential. Our city has been called a "boomtown" by numerous publications around the country.
The Greater Houston Visitors and Convention Bureau, as the destination sales and marketing arm of the city, has enjoyed and contributed to Houston's success. The GHCVB sales team booked nearly 600,000 hotel room nights of future convention business that will generate more than $760 million for our local economy. We hosted two prestigious events this year for the first time: Meeting Professionals International, a group of 2,000 meeting planners; and Microsoft's Partner Conference, which brought 10,000 Microsoft clients to Houston from around the world. We also successfully launched the My Houston global image campaign and CityPass, a discounted ticket booklet to our top attractions.
• Focus on Houston's image. In February, we launched My Houston, Houston's first global image campaign. The campaign, featuring a wide variety of local celebrities, has been well received, and we'd like to work next year to engage local people. Our own citizenry needs to be more aware of the campaign to generate additional word-of-mouth buzz. The campaign is authentic, which has resonated well with people who have seen both the print and broadcast ads, but it hasn't taken hold as well in Houston — mostly because we run our ads in outer markets to generate tourism and convention business. Houstonians can expect to see more of this campaign in the coming months.
We have several high-profile groups coming into town in the next few months that will generate publicity across the globe, and we plan to maximize each opportunity.
• The Latin Grammys: On Nov. 13, 100 different countries will tune in to see Houston spotlighted on a global stage.
• The Society of American Travel Writers: 400 travel writers and public relations professionals from the United States and Canada will spend five days sampling the city for upcoming stories.
• The American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors: 125 feature editors from newspapers around the country will spend time in the Museum District.
• The Association of Food Journalists: 75 newspaper and magazine food journalists will experience our culinary scene during their annual convention.
On May 13, Houston became the 11th city in the United States to offer CityPass. This is a major coup for the city, as only the top tourist cities in the country have been accepted into the program — New York, Chicago, Southern California, Philadelphia ... and now, Houston. CityPass executives chose Houston as the 11th city in part because of our strong international appeal, and GHVCB will work with travel agents and tour operators from around the world to package City-
Pass for international travelers.
• Houston is the energy capital of the world and home to the world's largest medical center. Why, then, are we not the leaders for energy and medical conventions? GHVCB must engage the local business community and inform them about the benefits of meeting in Houston, tying our sales efforts to our economic demographics and giving our local companies a home-field advantage.
• The visitors and convention bureau also needs an enhanced presence in Washington, D.C., which is home to approximately 2,400 associations. In the past 3 years, we've booked 110 conventions from the D.C. market, which equates to nearly 250,000 room nights and an economic impact of almost $120 million. By increasing the size of our D.C. office to six sales people, I'd like to increase those numbers by 15 percent within one full year of operation.
• Houston is already a leader in international business. The introduction of the new direct flights with Singapore and Emirates Airlines show this, not to mention the reach of Continental Airlines in Latin America and the extensiveness of the Houston Airport System and Port of Houston. International attendance at U.S.-based conventions like the Offshore Technology Conference contributes to this, but only a small percentage of our convention business is international in origin. We plan to move all leisure marketing to the Web and exclusively focus on marketing to groups via wholesalers and international congress organizers which, coupled with the added sales efforts, should increase the number of international conventions in Houston significantly.
In the 20 years I've been away from Houston, the city grew from a second-tier, regional convention destination to a global city that should be competing with New York, Chicago, London and Paris. I look forward to continuing that success.
Ortale is president of the Greater Houston Visitors and Convention Bureau.

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