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Home / Washington Business - March/April 2008 / Q&A: Don Welsh: President and CEO, Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau: Convention center major draw for tourism dollars |
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Q&A: Don Welsh: President and CEO, Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau: Convention center major draw for tourism dollars |
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Written On: March/April 2008 |
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Don Welsh is president and CEO of the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau. He began his career in 1980 with United Airlines in Chicago. Later, he entered the hospitality industry where he spent many years working with major hotels, including Westin, Ritz Carlton and the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Before joining the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau five years ago, Welsh ran the Continental Basketball Association, the former minor league for the National Basketball Association.
Q: What does the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau do?
A: We are the economic engine for bringing conventions and domestic and international tourists to the area. We work closely with the major hotels to bring in meetings and conventions. We are — for the first time — recognized as a true, legitimate economic development agency. This past year we brought in $4.75 billion in revenue and about $420 million in taxes. Based on the latest sampling, we represent about 62,000 jobs. The numbers continue to grow and Seattle continues to evolve and really become a tier-one, class-A city.
Q: Where are the conventioneers and tourists coming from?
A: If you break down the convention business, we have always enjoyed an excellent reputation, particularly with the great convention center that’s located downtown. It’s always been one of the real attractions. It is literally steps from many of the major anchor hotels. Convention planners love that. It doesn’t require buses or the logistics of moving people over distances.
We’ve always done well with the technology, education, and research and scientific sectors. We do very well with highly educated, higher-profile groups.
If you look at the individual, leisure side of the business, a lot of that business during the off-season is more regional. During the off-season, we’ll get a lot of business from California, Oregon and British Columbia — particularly now with the strength of the Canadian dollar. We’ve seen a tremendous increase in Canadian visitors in the last six months to a year. When we get into the peak summer months, that’s when business really explodes for us, both internationally and domestically.
One of our real strengths is that we have Alaska Airlines — our hometown airline — with the amount of nonstop flights they have to Mexico and all through the United States.
I do think we’re going to be able to continue to attract some more Asian airlines in the months and years to come as a result of the third-runway investment at Sea-Tac. We’ll be introducing a new nonstop flight to Beijing in June on Hainan Airlines. It’s nice that we don’t need to go to Vancouver now or down to San Francisco or Los Angeles to catch a long-haul flight.
In the past five years, we’ve added a lot more capacity out of Europe. We have a nonstop daily flight out of Paris that started last year. We have a new nonstop from Seattle to Frankfurt that’s starting in two months. We have Northwest to Amsterdam, SAS to Copenhagen and British Airways to London. The London market is so important that Northwest Airlines is going to be adding services starting in June, as well. So we’ll be having 17 nonstops a week to London out of Seattle.
Q: What would attract a conventioneer or a tourist to Seattle?
A: If you think about companies in the technology sector, it’s wonderful having Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond and the reputation we have in technology. Microsoft brings in three waves of people per year. In aviation and aerospace, too, we benefit with the Boeing impact here. If you think about education, the Northwest has a great reputation. For education, we have the University of Washington. In biotech and biomedical, we have South Lake Union.
One thing we see in Seattle is that, while a lot of these people come from all over the country, a high percentage comes from the East Coast. When groups come in for a convention in Seattle, they’ll add on a day before their convention begins or a day after, which allows them to tag on a two-day trip up to Vancouver or to go on the Victoria Clipper. If they’re skiers, this time of the year is a perfect opportunity. We see a lot of people during the winter and off-peak months. In the summertime, we see a lot of people bring their families with them. While the conventioneers are in session for two or three days, their families are out exploring the Seattle area. In many cases, they’ll head up to B.C. they’ll go down to Oregon or over to eastern Washington.
The cruise industry has become really important for us here. This summer, we’ll have more than 200 departures to Alaska. That’s about 430,000 people in each direction. A lot of the groups will buy 50 or 60 cabins. Before their convention starts or after it’s over, they’ll tag on a trip up to Alaska. People say, “I may not be back here for another three to five to seven years, so I’ll tag on a trip.”
On the international side, a lot of people from France, Germany, or the U.K. will start in Seattle and go all throughout the area. They average between 14 and 17 nights of stay when they come into our part of the country. There are so many things to do.
Once people go to a Disneyland or some place that’s a little more fabricated, they want a real experience. They want a real city. They want to go to the Pike Place Market, they want to go over and see the wine region, they want to be near the water, or they want to take in some good sports. Our stadiums and our arts and entertainment community are drawing cards for us. Seattle is now this highly creative area where musicals and theater come together.
Q: What is the importance of the convention industry and tourism statewide?
A: Clearly, tourism has always been a very, very important source of business for our state. Unfortunately, we’ve never invested too well in it until Gov. Gregoire recently started helping us fix that. The first thing she did was to create a state tourism commission, of which I’m one of 19 members. We meet six to eight times a year. We’ve taken our budget from $3.6 million to over $10 million this year to help promote the state.
From a creative standpoint, we’re doing some really tangible things just to get the message out — including print, Web sites, and partnerships — and in some cases we partner with the B.C. government or Oregon. When people travel, particularly internationally, they don’t just come to see Seattle. They want to see the wine country around Walla Walla, they want to go down and see Mount St. Helens, or they want to get up to Everett and see the Boeing factory. So there’s a lot of synergy that takes place.
Seattle and Spokane have always been the anchors on either side of the state and we understand the need to make sure we are cross-selling one another to increase the collective marketing effort. I think we’ve been very successful in doing that over the last couple of years.
Q: What plans exist to capitalize on the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver?
A: The good news is that we have begun exchanges with the board of the convention bureau up in Vancouver. We were fortunate to hear John Furlong, the CEO and person responsible for the Olympics in Vancouver, speak to our group a year ago. Then, we brought their board down here and hosted them. The whole idea was to begin a cross-pollenization of ideas to see what we can do. A lot of the advertisers they’ll target are in and around the Seattle/King County area. Clearly, having the relationship with our board didn’t hurt.
We’d like to see a little more focus toward when people are up in Vancouver, Victoria and other parts of B.C. during that period of time. Is there going to be enough for them to do here in and around Seattle to get them to come across the border? We’re working on that, as well. On the federal side, we’re trying to make sure that those who arrive in Seattle or depart out of Seattle have an easier movement through the border.
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