Smaller cities emerge among top picks for biz meetings

If you're heading soon to a conference or group meeting, there's a strong chance you'll be spending time in Tucson, or Charleston, S.C., or Jacksonville.

Cvent, an event-management portal, is out with its list of the 50 most popular U.S. cities for events and meetings, and while the usual suspects like Orlando and Las Vegas remain at the top, smaller cities are emerging as appealing alternatives.

"The entire meeting experience will be cheaper for the attendee,'' says Reggie Aggarwal, Cvent's CEO, "but also people are looking for different experiences. That's why we're seeing a rise of regional alternatives."

In the U.S., 30% to 35% of business travel is made up of people heading to events, conferences and meetings. And based on activity tracked from July 2014 through June 2015, Cvent found that Orlando is the No. 1 destination, followed by Las Vegas and Chicago.

The top three lineup is relatively unchanged from the previous year. But Pittsburgh and Charleston, S.C., made their debuts on the new list, coming in at numbers 43 and 50, respectively. And Jacksonville and Tucson appeared for only the second time in the annual poll, grabbing the 47th and 48th spots respectively.

Jacksonville may be an attractive alternative to Orlando for meeting attendees who've never visited Jacksonville before,  , Aggarwal says, while Charleston might be a refreshing option to the busier metro hub of Atlanta. "It's very interesting to me when there's a conference somewhere I've never been,'' he says.

Billions at stake

Municipalities vie for meetings and events because they're big business. Globally, $565 billion a year is spent on such gatherings, with the U.S. market seeing roughly 40% of that revenue, according to Cvent, And hotels alone receive $103 billion of that spending, worldwide, each year.

So smaller cities are joining their perhaps better-known peers in investing in conference centers, upgrading airports and bringing more hotel rooms into the market to increase their chances of being chosen.

Lauren Dolph, conference director for the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, says that for years her group toggled between Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Houston for their annual conferences. But now the organization is seeking smaller, off-the-beaten path destinations to boost attendance and keep people inspired once they get there.

"We have attendees from across the state and from across the country, and we're looking at how can we do something different,'' she says. "How do we keep it fresh and make them think this is an event they need to be coming to every year? ... There's something about these smaller towns where they really seem to work with us.''

Money talks

Next year, the group will hold an event on Galveston Island on the Texas Gulf Coast. And it's separately considering a reception in the south Texas town of McAllen, where a group of the community's elders will come and share the town's history. "There's something about that which is very special and unique,'' she says.

Pricing is also critical so attendees can afford to come. "We're looking at who's willing to work with us and who is able to offer things like parking and whether the Wi-Fi is free,'' Dolph says.

Tucson launched a rebranding effort roughly two years ago to woo more business gatherings as well as vacationers.

Local tourism officials give meeting planners tools to help promote the city so potential attendees can see the appeal of traveling there "vs. places they've consistently gone to, like Las Vegas or Anaheim," says Graeme Hughes, director of sales for Visit Tucson. "People want to experience things and experience the destination in a very personal and tactile way now, so we seized on that momentum to present Tucson as one of those options.''

Hughes says tourism officials emphasize Tucson's uniqueness, such as its location just 60 miles from Mexico and its confluence of Native American, Spanish and Western cultures.

The city also offers a deal to planners. If they confirm a meeting or event, Visit Tucson will apply a credit to the master account of the host hotel that can add up to as much as $5,000 if 200 or more rooms are booked for two nights.

"We have a lot of planners who call, and the first question is ... 'Are you still offering the incentive program? And if so we want to include Tucson in our search,''' Hughes says.

Efforts by Visit Tucson have resulted in more than 300 meetings and events being booked annually in the area, and those gatherings poured at least $132 million into the local economy in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

And Hughes emphasized that's just a portion of the meetings and conference activity happening in the area, because many planners deal directly with local hotels and resorts.

"It's a huge boon to our economy,'' he says.