For Bureaus Only:
A Strategic Planning Model That Really Works

Strategic planning for bureaus is a uniquely complex process because of diverse (and often conflicting) constituencies and the broad scope of opportunities and challenges that must be addressed. This session presents a strategic planning model developed specifically for bureaus to help them gain consensus of all key constituents and create the future for the destination.

Does Your Marketing Plan Measure Up?
40 Criteria for Checking It Out

A CVB’s marketing plan not only provides direction for the future, it serves as the basis for validating a CVB’s overall performance and for justifying resource needs to its funding sources... a critical issue facing CVBs. How can a CVB ensure that its marketing plan effectively satisfies the accountability requirements of a diverse constituency?

OCG has developed a model consisting of 40 specific criteria for analyzing CVB marketing plans. This model also provides a comprehensive framework/checklist for creating an effective CVB marketing plan.

Regional Marketing: Potential for Profits and Pitfalls

Everyone is talking about regional marketing, but there are few examples of success beyond the pursuit of international markets. This session provides an in-depth investigation of this complex topic, based on experiences with CVBs that are bi-state, multi-county in structure, and several currently engaged in regional marketing.

Ideally, participants are surveyed in advance regarding their regional marketing experiences, and the results are incorporated into the program presentation.

Quality of Destination: What is the Role of the CVB?

Quality of destination ultimately defines a CVB’s success. Accommodations, safety, airports, ground transportation, restaurants, attractions, and other support services affect visitor satisfaction and overall destination image. For this reason, destination quality is a growing concern for CVBs.

This program presents a systematic approach to addressing quality of destination issues, including the role of CVBs and other hospitality leaders.

Watching Out for Alligators

This session uses a panel-discussion format to focus on the pitfalls, or "lurking dangers" that CVBs encounter, generally from a politically-driven perspective. A brief model is presented which defines an alligator and describes strategies with which to master them. Each guest panelist then tells about a personal alligator encounter, as a method of introducing scenarios for discussion and problem solving. The moderator engages the participants in discussion and fields questions, moving among the audience with a wireless, handheld microphone.

Although the tone of this program is casual, and the stories sometimes quite humorous, the content is very pointed and relevant.

CVB Accountability: An Ongoing Challenge

One of the "hottest" and most difficult challenges that CVBs face today is the issue of accountability to local governance entities. This session addresses account-ability issues, the origins of accountability pressure, and most importantly, tips and suggestions for successfully overcoming the accountability challenge.

Like all organizations, a CVB must satisfy the expectations of its customers to be successful. But achieving customer satisfaction presents a unique challenge in a CVB environment.

Unlike other organizations, CVBs have many disparate customer groups, including a widely diverse membership, with different (and often conflicting) wants, needs and demands. The key to achieving satisfaction in this environment is to identify which wants, needs and demands are the most critical indicators of satisfaction. By identifying these "key indicators," the CVB can focus limited resources in ways that will have the greatest impact on the satisfaction of its members and other customers.

This session will present stimulating ideas and real-life examples of how to identify key indicators of customer satisfaction, define targets for improvement, and monitor CVB’s progress.

The Delicate Art of Managing Board Relations

For CVB staff, a highly focused and well-functioning board of directors is an awesome ally in the world of funding, politics, and community relations. As the CVB elevates its profile in the community, the board becomes even more critical to success. With the right approach and a delicate "touch," the CVB staff can successfully manage board relations and actually influence the CVB’s overall effectiveness.

This session presents valuable tips, board assessment tools, job descriptions and other constructive devices for setting boundaries, clarifying expectations, and improving communications between the board and staff.