CONVENTION SALES

The Convention Sales team is off and running in 2019 but seeing a slower start to the year, with leads down 2%, but room nights up just over 17% YOY. We are hard at work meeting with clients and hosting site visits to finish out a strong first quarter.

Highlights

New Initiatives
The team is working on some new initiatives for 2019. We are forming a local committee of DOSMs that will meet on a regular basis to strategize how we can market and book business in our need periods. We are also looking into recreating a Customer Advisory Board that will be made up of a variety of meeting planners so we can have a strong sounding board for creative and next-generation thinking.

BNP Paribas Open FAM
We have just finished our BNP Paribas Open FAM, where we had our full sales team and 13 clients siting several properties and offsite venues, as well as enjoying the incredible tennis at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Along with the 13 clients, we also hosted 9 other planners that were here for a variety of sites. These clients are first-timers to our Southern California meeting oasis, and we were so excited to show them our destination.

Video Spots
Brand has been busy working on our new convention sales vignette video spots. Working closely with our Greater Palm Springs Partners, we are gathering incredible footage and fun facts from properties, offsite venues and unique spaces. We can’t wait to be able to share these videos on our social media channels, with our strategic Partners and on the website.

Site Experience
Our Site Experience program is in full swing, and we are seeing great results from our post-visit site surveys — so our host properties are listening to the feedback and stepping it up. Properties visited are ranking in the mid-to-high 8s (out of 10) for planner satisfaction and overall experience. Where we could use improvement is making sure our GMs and executive teams are knowledgeable about the planners’ programs and organizations; we score in the 7s in that regard. That’s where our added content and planner meeting profiles can benefit the overall experience planners have while in our meeting oasis.
Booking Production Analysis - February 2019

The Booking Production Analysis report tracks the CVB's Convention Sales team and legacy room leads, definite room nights and bookings overall, as well as by year, market segment and key state.