The International Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus, based in Washington, D.C., has launched a Convention and Expenditure Impact Study that it hopes will standardize industry economic impact calculations and provide updated measures of the meeting and convention industry.
The study will survey event organizers, meeting delegates, and exhibiting companies in the United States and Canada, with results to be published in summer 2003. IACVB expects the results to “enhance a CVB's ability to communicate to its stakeholders the economic impact that meetings and conventions generate for a destination,” sums up Steve Moore, chairman of the IACVB Performance Measurement Team and president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix CVB.
Last conducted in 1998 as the “Convention Income Survey,” the research has been expanded to use online data collection technology. Another enhancement is an online tool CVBs can use to measure the expected impact of any particular group in which it is interested, according to IACVB.
