Arvin, What's insane is what heart-of-the-strip Vegas hotels charge for use of their convention space. Just because you can go on Kayak and buy a single leftover-inventory room in Vegas for $59 does not mean you can waltz into a prime location and lock down 400 rooms plus use of their convention space at that rate. Especially over a weekend, which is peak rates for Vegas... I got 2012 bids from some strip hotels (no reference to James Weeks, II intended). Our delegates would have to pay $50-$70 more per night for guest rooms to get use of the convention space, and the hotels demanded minimum F&B (food and beverage) that was 2-5 times higher than our typical spending. The only affordable bids we got were off-strip. We would face the same situation in many destination cities. We might be able to swing something on the outskirts, but our delegates are generally unwilling to pay for premium locations. -Alicia On Thu, Jun 2, 2016 at 10:32 AM, Arvin Vohra <votevohra@gmail.com> wrote:
Please note that Las Vegas was done off the strip, which was insane. -Arvin On Jun 2, 2016 1:28 AM, "Alicia Mattson" <agmattson@gmail.com> wrote:
Las Vegas is one of those top-10 destination cities. We were in Las Vegas in 2012 but did not have the turnout we had in Orlando.
Atlanta is not one of those top-10 destination cities, but in 2004 we had over 800 delegates there.
What really drove convention turnout this year was Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, not the fact that it was Orlando.
Some of those top-10 cities are VERY, VERY expensive for conventions (New York, San Francisco). If we didn't have Trump/Clinton to drive our convention attendance, and we chose a very expensive destination city, we'd lose our shirts on the convention finances.
-Alicia
On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 9:31 PM, Arvin Vohra <votevohra@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
This year's convention was an amazing success. One of the many reasons: the location. We picked a destination city, so people brought their spouses and kids. Many people bough gold packages, even when they weren't delegates, and routinely bought packages for their families as well.
I believe that all future conventions should be in destination cities. I know that the common wisdom is that presidential conventions should be in non-destination cities, because people will go to the convention anyway. The argument is: don't waste good cities on presidential years.
This argument is flawed. While delegates will go anywhere, they won't bring their families to non-destination cities.
Here are some cities we should consider: https://www.tripadvisor.com/TravelersChoice-Destinations-cTop-g191
And we should stick to the top 10.
Even if we repeat cities constantly, that's fine. Most people would be fine going to Las Vegas or New Orleans every four years, or even every two years.
I await your feedback, and I intend to make a motion on this in advance of the July meeting.
-- Arvin Vohra
www.VoteVohra.com VoteVohra@gmail.com (301) 320-3634
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