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There's a recession going on, so the venue must be affordable. Those who fly will want to get there affordably. Those who don't will want to drive there conveniently. The local attractions must afford employees richly deserved psychic income, to help neutralize the stresses of doing more with less. On the other hand, the attractions cannot be so enticing that business objectives end up taking a back seat to recreation. This may sound like an impossible conundrum, but Kansas City's hospitality leaders believe the answer to this riddle is simple: Keep the meeting here! They also believe the rationale for staying home has more to do with savvy than civic boosterism or guilt. "The case for Kansas City meetings is strictly economic," says Carol Pecoraro, general manager of the Marriott Downtown. "You'll save a ton of money." Pecoraro says certain themes are consistent when she talks with Kansas City-based clients about conference planning in a stressed economy. "In the old days, everyone assumed the best way to boost attendance and generate excitement was to give people a chance to go someplace they'd never been. People today are driven by a different set of imperatives. If you're a business leader, with a specific mission at hand, you want to save money and ensure total engagement. This means you simply can't ignore travel and housing costs. "It's much more common for people today to pay their own expenses. For many, the difference between a $99 room and a $179 room and is the difference between showing up or staying home. I doubt that will change any time soon." A continuous challenge to local meeting planners, even before the recession, was a perception that "the grass is greener elsewhere," says Rod Anderson, acting president of the Kansas City (MO) Convention and Visitors Bureau. Anderson says he often hears that "Kansas City is a great place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there." The fact is, he says, that outsiders are usually dazzled when they learn about the number and variety of Kansas City's attractions. "I find it ironic that so many locals complain there's nothing to do. What I have trouble finding is the time to take advantage of it all." Carol Marinovich, mayor/CEO of the Unified Govern-ment of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, thinks Kansas Citians are not necessarily inattentive to the area's offerings, but may suffer from inertia. "I believe people appreciate what's here, but think they can postpone taking advantage of it, because it will always be here." Wyandotte County gained stature in the region's hospitality industry when the Reardon Civic Center was refurbished this past year. The convention center now offers 20,000 square feet of exhibit and ballroom space, adjacent to a newly opened 150-room Hilton Garden Inn. Platte County is now a player also. The new KCI Expo Center near the airport includes 80,000 square feet of exhibit and meeting space. Since opening a year ago, the center has hosted more than 130,000 people for public and private shows. Not to be outdone, Johnson County recently opened the doors to its long-anticipated 260,000-square-foot convention center. The complex includes the 400-room Sheraton Overland Park Hotel that boasts an additional 25,000 square feet of meeting space. Betsy Butler, a spokesman for the Overland Park Convention and Visitors Bureau, says Johnson County's new facilities sometimes compete with downtown facilities. However, at the macro-level, "our marketing staffers consider themselves completely interdependent with counterparts in KCK and KCMO.
"We sell Kansas City as a metropolitan area. Our success is intertwined with that of our neighbors. We depend on the attractions of greater Kansas City as a marketing tool. We have some nice things in Johnson County--such as the Arboretum and the Carlsen Center--but our appeal is just as dependent on citywide magnets such as Union Station, Crown Center and the Plaza. Sheraton Overland Park Hotel General Manager Tom Healy, has a unique perspective on the local convention scene owing to his status as a newcomer. A native of Hackensack, New Jersey, Healy has been here only a few months, after prior assignments in such destinations as New York and Washington D.C. "I flew back and forth over Kansas City for years and only saw it from 30,000 feet," he says. "When I arrived last summer I was shocked to discover how much was here." Cindy Jacobson, a meeting planner for Cerner Corp., agrees that Kansas City is "one of the best kept secrets in the entire country." Cerner's annual health conference, she says, started out nearly two decades ago as a regional user's group meeting, but has since grown to become a major international event. While the venue is subject to change, more than 15 consecutive sessions have been held in Kansas City. Jacobson says people consistently mention how pleased they are with their stay. She says visitors consider the city "easy to fly into and easy to navigate." Asked what attraction draws the most favorable comments, she responds "probably the beef--the steaks and barbecue." Healy echoes Pecoraro's observation that economics, not civic pride, should drive any decision by a city-based company to keep a meeting local. "It's a buyer's market to be sure, and will be for the foreseeable future. "Between the recession and the over-supply of rooms in greater Kansas City, there are good rates to be had, especially for group bookings. The industry as a whole has been hard hit by conference cancellations, and deferrals of staff training and incentive travel." Healy is another who claims to be perplexed by the number of local people who complain about the "difficulty" of getting around in the metro area. "You really don't know what traffic is until you've tried to get to downtown New York or Chicago from the airport during rush hour." One question meeting planners confront regularly, of course, is where to take a meeting if not to Kansas City. Again, hospitality industry leaders say an overview of the competitive field should simply reinforce the case for staying home. Jeff Eastman, of the KCMO Convention and Visitors Bureau, says Kansas City's competition usually includes Midwestern cities that are somewhat smaller than the coastal giants. "People considering us are usually looking at places like Denver, St. Louis, Minneapolis or Indianapolis," he says. "We compare favorably with them in terms of air fares and hotel costs. Also, ‘driveability' is a big factor now with regional meetings. A huge number of people live within a four or five-hour drive of Kansas City, and that has been a major factor in sustaining our convention business." Eastman notes that shifting values in the workplace have significantly altered the priorities of corporate meeting planners. "There's a lot less emphasis today on ski trips, golf outings and exotic resorts," he says. "It's insensitive to rub that kind of thing into the noses of people who have seen colleagues laid off and departmental budgets sliced to the bone. "Execs today want the most from every dollar, whether it's a business purchase or a company meeting. It's not uncommon to see training sessions running from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Indeed, when you're following that kind of regimen, it may not matter what the local attractions are. No one's getting out to see them anyway!" Isabelle Blainey, sales manager for the Overland Park Convention Center, says merchants of big ticket items like this area because, despite everything, it has pockets of prosperity that consistently rate well in national rankings. For example, exhibitors at the January, 2003 boat show reported brisk traffic and excellent sales. "We have no trouble booking consumer shows," she says. "The exhibitors know that people in Johnson County have money to spend. This part of our business has not dipped during the recession. It's actually picked up." Given this array of rosy perspectives, one might think that Kansas City faces no significant challenges in maintaining its competitive edge, and this of course is not true. Kansas City's high profile attractions remain spread out in distinct clusters, an accident of geography that will not be altered by anything short of an earthquake measuring 12.0 on the 8.0 Richter scale. Rod Anderson believes that "everyone who has a pulse" is anxious to see a metamorphosis in the rundown neighborhoods that stretch between River Market and Midtown. "If you were in New York City," he says, "the walking distance between Bartle Hall and Union Station would be nothing. You'd walk that far just for the fun of it. But who would walk that stretch now, particularly after dark, given the spotty neighborhoods and the lack of pedestrian walkways?" Concern about urban blight is hardly new. What is new--hospitality leaders agree--is consensus about the urgency of moving ahead. They point to the bond issues funding Bartle Hall expansion and other downtown improvements. They also point to the commitment and enthusiasm generated by the prospect of a new performing arts center. "We should have started this process 15 years ago," says Anderson, "but the good news is that it's finally happening. There will be disagreements over specific agenda items, like the downtown arena, but every key group is on the same page now in terms of major emphases. Finally I see a real prospect of action." In the meantime, Jeff Eastman sees locally backed, locally booked con- ferences as an excellent way to conserve resources and put Kansas Citians in touch with their own cultural icons. "You always hear about the New Yorker who has never visited the Empire State Building," he says. "We have that same affliction here." Is there any one attraction that stands out as the "number one thing" that locals have failed to take advantage of? "It's hard to say what our top draw is," he says. "I talk to hundreds of visitors about their impressions of Kansas City, and to be quite honest the most frequent observation is not about physical facilities; it's about people. The number one comment is how helpful Kansas Citians are to visitors." "I've lived in eight cities, so I see the differences," he continues. "If you ask somebody in L.A. for directions, the answer will be that they have no idea how to help you. And they don't. If you stop someone in Chicago, they'll take time to give you general instructions. If you stop someone in Charlotte, they will give you specific directions and then take time to draw you a map. "When I made my very first trip to Kansas City, I got lost and stopped in a convenience store for help. The clerk hopped in my car and took me to where I was going!"
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