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Atlanta shows blueprint for adding medical meetings
Three years ago, officials of the Atlanta Convention and Visitor’s Bureau decided to focus on areas of government investment — infrastructure, alternative energy, education and healthcare.
When the recession hit in late 2008, that began to pay off in medical meetings.
“The thinking was that industries receiving the most federal investment were likely to have more meetings and higher attendance,” said Medical Meetings.
“We’ve definitely seen an increase in medical meetings,” said William Pate, president and chief executive officer of the CVB. Medical meetings are up almost 46 percent over the past year.
How did they do it?
The Atlanta CVB added more sales staff and focused more resources on the healthcare industry and other targeted markets.
“We’ve identified more meetings and meeting planners that we haven’t spent time with in the last several years and put them on our target list to go out and talk to,” said Pate, who has sales staff in Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
With the fourth largest convention center in the country, Atlanta is able to go after medical meetings of any size, he adds.
Atlanta has also gained from the climate surrounding medical meetings.
“Resort” destinations have been targeted by government and industry regulators as inappropriate for some industry meetings.
“This is a city that has a reputation for being a business city,” Pate said.
By David Wilkening
David
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