The Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau Unveils A New Way

With a new focus and a new Internet initiative, the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau is looking for its “Next Big Attraction.”

The group, which estimates that convention business brought into the area by its efforts equated into a $42.5 million impact in 2009, is hoping to tap new resources, focusing on bringing a higher number of smaller groups to the area to fill the void of a slight downturn in revenues in an uncertain economy.

To that end, the bureau launched its new “Next Big Attraction” campaign at its annual meeting in March. A big component of the campaign is its website, www.nextbigattraction.com, where the public can offer leads on groups both large and small to bring to the area. The website highlights some of the bureau’s recent successes, like October’s meeting of the Association of Manufacturing Excellence that had an estimated $1.4 million economic impact on the area, or — more in line with the Next Biggest Attraction’s main focus — the smaller Kingdom Ministries convention that brought in another $90,000.

“(The campaign) really let’s people become more (of) a part of the success of the local meeting and convention business. It lets them have an effect on bringing money and jobs into the area,” says Tom Caradonio, the president and CEO of NKCVB. “We might not have big events like AME, every year, but we can have three smaller groups that will collectively have the same impact, and the public can help us book those groups.”

The website also offers testimonials from those groups, spelling out the lengths the bureau went to make their visits a success.

Though the new campaign is only a month old, Caradonio says the campaign is already showing results. With little fanfare to date (he’s only spoken to two groups since Next Big Attraction’s unveiling), NKCVB has seven or eight strong leads from the website already and expects more will follow.

The effort is a logical extension of NKCVB’s Champions Club, which has spurred local event planning for more than a decade, according to Caradonio.

Champions Club depended on information from a Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce questionnaire, feeding the bureau’s schedule with larger visitors since it began in 1998. With the bureau still reaping the benefits of those contacts, overall bookings have increased 12 percent in 2009. However, the current economic atmosphere made going after smaller groups with Next Big Attraction logical, Caradonio says.

Citing reports showing that visitor spending in Northern Kentucky dropped from $306 million in 2008 to just $263 million last year, it was time for the bureau to change direction and seek out new groups interested in visiting Northern Kentucky.

“Corporate meetings fell off a bit, which is why it made sense for us to refocus on targeting groups of all sizes. It was time to reassess the market. Our convention and meetings booking were up 12,000 room-nights over the previous year, which was a real bright spot, but we had to ask ourselves ‘How do we keep moving forward?'” he says.

The answer has led to NKCVB’s “conscious decision” to court smaller church groups, such as the Christ in Youth convention that met at NKU’s new Bank of Kentucky Center in February, and tap into new resources like hobbyist and sports-oriented groups.

With venues ranging from the Northern Kentucky Convention Center and the Bank of Kentucky Center, to NKU’s high-tech METS Center and various other locations, the area has plenty of spots for groups of all sizes, Caradonio points out. And, of course, the area has a large number of flexible hotel spaces to accommodate any needs.

Meanwhile, NKCVB hasn’t given up on the larger conventions and corporate groups.

“When corporate meetings start to get big again, which we hope will be in the near future, we can reassess again. We have to stay flexible,” Caradonio adds. Next Big Attraction will help in that respect, he says.

“It really is a grassroots approach that lets the public keep the ball rolling,” he says. “I tell people that I don’t know how many people can fork out the money it takes to build an aquarium or another Creation Museum, but they can still impact the local economy. With the Next Big Attraction, they can help us bring their church group, or a hobby or pastime group here and have the same impact.”

SOURCES: Tom Caradonio, President & CEO, Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.