Conventioneers offered taste of FC suds, GJ vino

Tough economic times call for a little ingenuity. In an effort to cost-effectively expand promotional efforts to bring meetings and groups to their cities, the Fort Collins Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Grand Junction Visitor & Convention Bureau have forgone competitive angst and formed a marketing alliance known as “A Taste of Two Cities.”

Each bureau promotes the other to groups who desire a change in scenery for their next meeting. This marketing program is united on the destinations’ beverage cultures: Fort Collins, the leader in Colorado brewing, and Grand Junction, the heart of Colorado’s wine industry.

“First and foremost, we want to re-book groups to Fort Collins,´ said Tyler James, director of sales at the Fort Collins CVB.

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However, it’s natural for planners to rotate annual meeting venues each year to a different area of the state. When it becomes clear that Fort Collins isn’t on the table for the next event, James will suggest Grand Junction, and with the group’s permission will pass their information to the visitor and convention bureau there. The Grand Junction VCB sales force does the same by passing leads on to the Fort Collins CVB.

Kristin House, regional vice president of ConferenceDirect, a meeting and conference services firm, said, “I think it makes sense to cross-sell both destinations. There is a lot of similarity in size of venues and small-town feel. It also makes sense from a rotational standpoint, especially with groups that just meet in the state of Colorado. Eventually, those groups are going to rotate to the north/west parts of the state.”

James monitored other alliances, such as Boston/Minneapolis and Tampa/St. Petersburg. He saw how destinations that weren’t directly competitive could gain market share by promoting common themes, attractions and features to appeal to the same type of visitor or meeting planner. At the Destination Marketing Association International conference last fall James seriously began to consider what other larger convention and visitor bureaus had done to reduce costs and pondered, “Why couldn’t we do that on a smaller scale?”

‘Their wine, our beer’

Jim Clark, president and CEO of the Fort Collins CVB, has a simple explanation of the alliance: “Their wine. Our beer. Two different parts of the state. There was an opportunity to start doing trade shows together to attract the many groups that meet in Colorado every year.”

Clark had a long-standing relationship with leadership of the Grand Junction bureau and admired the destination’s success in promoting the region’s wine industry. What began as casual conversations about opportunities to collaborate resulted in the “A Taste of Two Cities” promotion.

Barbara Bowman, division manager for the Grand Junction VCB, said, “The meetings and convention business is very important for both destinations. It can have a very positive economic impact.”

In fact, Grand Junction hit its June sales goals with just three conventions and a bike tour.

“A Taste of Two Cities” was officially launched in March 2009 with a reception for meeting planners in Denver co-hosted by the Fort Collins and Grand Junction bureaus. Local wine and beer were served and representatives from each community’s meeting and hospitality industry pitched all the reasons planners should bring their next meeting or convention to one of the cities. Another event is being planned for the fall.

Creates awareness of destinations

Jan Peters, vice president of Fort Collins Brewery, which supplied the reception brews, said, “The reception was very necessary to create awareness among the meeting planners about what each destination has to offer.”

Any group that books two consecutive meetings in Fort Collins and Grand Junction as part of the “A Taste of Two Cities” promotion will receive a complimentary wine or beer reception at their event.

This isn’t the first such alliance between convention and visitors bureaus. The destination marketing organizations responsible for promoting Phoenix, Las Vegas and San Diego in 2000 launched an appeal to international tour operators. Europeans with four to six weeks of vacation time who could afford to travel between the cities could book an enviable combo of beaches, desert and entertainment all in one trip.

According to Douglas MacKenzie, director of communication for the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitor Bureau, the alliance ended in 2005 in part due to budgetary constraints but also because it “proved challenging in creating programs that three destinations and three states could market efficiently and effectively.”

“We are, and they are, willing to invest the time it takes to build this partnership,´ said Bowman.

As budgets begin to loosen, the groups plan to work together on additional trade shows and advertising and could potentially expand the partnership to include leisure marketing.