|
VIEWPOINT: Industry data fills in some missing pieces |
|
|
|
|
By Yvonne D. Hawkins
|
|
Tuesday, 07 August 2007 |
OK, so here’s the deal ...
For those who are following events involving management of the Sioux Falls Convention Center, here’s some information that might interest you.
As a matter of background, the City Council is reviewing final details of a five-year contract that gives management duties to Global Spectrum, a national facilities-management company.
As part of the arrangement, the Sioux Falls Convention & Visitors Bureau also is negotiating to handle bookings at the center for events 18 months in advance and longer. And it’s requesting additional city funding to do the work.
The management arrangement has raised some eyebrows, in part because the city’s deals with Global Spectrum and the CVB came largely out of the blue. But it’s also raised questions because there has been little public explanation of why a joint arrangement with Global Spectrum and the CVB is necessary – especially since it would cost the city more money.
Well, according to a June industry report – admittedly supplied to me by CVB officials – indeed this management arrangement is in line with best practices that are being proposed industrywide.
That’s because facilities-management companies and CVBs often must balance competing objectives, the report says. CVBs, which largely are charged with promoting a city as a destination, need the flexibility to make deals on facility rates and services to bring in conventions and other business.
Facilities managers, on the other hand, generally aren’t given to such deal-making. Their jobs are to manage the facilities as cost-effectively as possible.
Given those differing objectives, industry folks say it’s better to allow CVBs to handle long-term bookings and facilities managers handle shorter-term ones. At least, that’s according to the nation’s largest CVB trade group and an international association of facilities managers. Those groups released the joint industry study, which lists best practices for managing public convention centers.
So, if Sioux Falls city officials can secure the money to fund such an arrangement, then it appears the deal would jive with what’s being done elsewhere.
It’s no small point, though, to acknowledge that the first choice for funding the CVB’s expanded role – continued collection of a 4 percent fee on rooms at the Sheraton Hotel – appears to be dead in the water.
John Q. Hammons Hotels & Resorts, which owns the Sheraton and previously managed the adjoining convention center, stopped collecting the voluntary fee after it lost its convention center contract to Global Spectrum. But that’s a whole other can of worms.
The primary point here is this: Along with seeking the best management practices for the convention center and solidifying appropriate funding, city officials also should better manage the flow of information.
By that, I mean give more details instead of fewer ones. That goes for supporting data, too.
The convention center’s role as an economic development tool is both unique and critical, so residents deserve the appropriate information to ensure decisions are the right ones.
The best way to do that is to put all of the information on the table and review it piece by piece – publicly, in plain view, warts and all.
That way everyone can know what the deal is. |