Quad Cities - Just as the busy summer season swings into gear, the Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau (QCCVB) announced today that 13 conferences/media visit during the month of June will have a local economic impact of more than $1 million.
Some 2,500 delegates will participate in 12 conferences and use 1,950 hotel room nights in the Quad Cities. In addition, a Japanese journalist visit on June 17 and 20, makes a baker's dozen for the QCCVB.
Some of these conferences include :
· Midwest Small Business Government Contracting Symposium on June 2-4
· 2015 Iowa Beta Sigma Phi Convention on June 5-7
· Iowa State Convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars on June 5-7
· Iowa Association of Business & Industry on June 10-12. It is also being billed as Iowa's first statewide bicycle-friendly business conference. Attendees are being asked to bring their bicycles and ride the great Quad Cities riverfront trails to and from meeting venues.
· ComedySportz World Championship on June 10-13
· National Association of Agricultural Educators Region IV Leadership Conference on June 23-25
· Illinois Association of the Deaf State Conference on June 24-28
"The QCCVB sales team realized a 32% increase in meetings and convention business booked in the Quad Cities over the last year," says Lynn Hunt, QCCVB vice-president of sales. "Our sales team has worked hard to bring new business to the Quad Cities, and they have generated leads for our area convention centers, hotels, attractions, restaurants and others in the hospitality businesses. All of these partners are helping us convert our sales leads into booked business."
"We consider quality service as the new sales methodology when approaching meeting planners. And the word is spreading on how our community embraces and engages meeting planners to make their planning easy, and their attendee's experiences memorable."
According to the QCCVB, there are other conferences and conventions happening in addition to the conferences secured by the QCCVB sales team. The Rock Island County Farm Bureau noted there are also four agricultural conferences in June 2015.
This positive news comes on the heels of expected tourism funding cuts from the State of Illinois. Last year alone, the Quad Cities welcomed over 1.4 million visitors that had an economic impact on the local economy of more than $800 million. Visitors come in the form of leisure travelers, group tours, meetings/conventions, and sports tournament attendees and participants.
Tourism funding from both Iowa and Illinois comes from hotel/motel taxes. A portion of the hotel/motel tax is redistributed back into tourism funds to help Convention & Visitors Bureaus, like the QCCVB, market and sell their regions to secure more visitors, group tours, meetings/conventions, and sports tournaments. In turn, this marketing continues to increase the hotel/motel tax collections. It is a reinvestment that continues to deliver higher and higher yields each year.
"Visitors fill our hotels, meeting centers, restaurants, shops, and attractions. And most importantly, they leave behind an economic impact that drives billions of dollars to the bottom line," says Charlotte Doehler-Morrison, VP Marketing & Communications, QCCVB.
According to the QCCVB, that economic engine is threatened. Proposed cuts could drastically reduce the QCCVB's ability to effectively sell and market the Quad Cities area and continue to increase the hotel/motel taxes generated for our cities and the economic impact visitors bring to our region.
The QCCVB is the official tourism destination marketing and management organization for the Quad Cities region. The organization serves the tourism interests of Scott County in Iowa and Rock Island, Mercer, Warren and Henderson Counties in Illinois.
The QCCVB increases visitor expenditures and overnight stays through strategic sales, marketing, and services to customers, members and communities. The QCCVB promotes and packages the Quad Cities as a destination to attract and meet the needs of meetings and conventions, group tours, sporting events and competitions, and leisure travelers. Quad Cities travel information, calendar of events, and Quad Cities Visitors Guide can be found at www.visitquadcities.com. The QCCVB operates five Visitor Centers in the Quad Cities: The District in Rock Island; Bass Street Landing and Quad City International Airport in Moline; Union Station in Davenport; and Iowa 80 Trucking Museum in Walcott.
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