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Flogging Conventions
New CVB head Kirchgesler views our strengths
as an outsider would. Which is good
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Business New Haven
2/23/1998
By: BNH
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Karolyn Kirchgesler arrived in New Haven last September to take the top job with the Greater New Haven Convention & Visitors Bureau, which represents Ansonia, Bethany, Derby, East Haven, Hamden, Milford, New Haven, North Branford, North Haven, Orange, Prospect, Shelton, Trumbull, West Haven and Woodbridge to potential travelers and conventioneers. She began her career with the convention and visitors bureau in Aberdeen, S.D. In 1994, she moved to Sioux Falls, S.D. to be director of sales and marketing at the convention center there. A graduate of Moorehead (Minn.) State University, Kirchgesler currently lives with her two dogs in Bethany.
How did you get from South Dakota to New Haven? And did you find the GNHCVB, or did they find you?
I actually found them. I was working for a convention center and I found I really missed the convention and visitors bureau side of the business. When you're working for a facility, you're really working, bottom-line, for that one entity. When you're working for a convention and visitors bureau you may be working for a whole city or region. And that's what I missed.
So how did you hook up with the New Haven folks?
I have always loved the East Coast. I think it's very beautiful here. I actually learned of this job on the Internet. I applied for the position, was granted an interview, came here, loved the people, loved the area.
Who interviewed you?
A number of people. I had an opportunity to meet with the staff, meet with the board of directors, meet with the search committee.
What did they all tell you were the challenges of this job?
It wasn't so much that; it was basically asking me a lot of questions. I think the challenges of the job are the challenges of any bureau job: Establishing yourself as some kind of a destination. And if not a destination, then as a credible stop-over point, or as come kind of convention and meeting town. Or region, in this case.
Once you arrived here, what surprised you most about the job, or even about Connecticut?
Probably what surprised me most was when I flew into Tweed-New Haven. I was expecting a much larger airport. I look at things like that because air service is very important in securing convention and meeting business. So I was disappointed in the size of the airport and the air service. But I was also surprised at the variety of the countryside here. It's wonderful: You can live along the shoreline here, you can live in the rolling hills, you can live in a big city, you can live in a small town - the options are limitless.
You mentioned destination, stop-over, meeting site. What exactly are we right now?
Well, there are 11 tourism regions in Connecticut, and each focuses on what their strengths are. Our strength right now is more as a convention and meeting and group tour market, as opposed to the leisure market. As far as tour groups, we're maybe a stop-over on the way to Boston or New York or Mystic. But being a stop-over point doesn't mean we can't get [travelers] to stay overnight.
Do you track where most of our visitors originate from?
We track in some different ways: where our requests are coming from, that is, people calling the office or e-mailing us or accessing our Web site. We find what areas they're coming from. When we have the visitors center open seasonally we gather information there. In our sales department we track where groups are coming from. For conventions and meetings, we generally go after groups that have a strong base of support in the state - for instance, a group with high membership in the New Haven region.
I'm confused about your reference to conventions. We don't have a convention center here.
I guess I use the words 'convention' and 'conference' interchangeably. Conventions can be 50 people; they can be 4,000 people. A good group for us is probably about 500 with the new Omni [New Haven Hotel at Yale] coming on board. But we have do have some larger groups: We get the Jehovah's Witnesses convention [at Veterans Memorial Coliseum] which comes in for four weekends each summer.
What's the address of your Web site?
It's www.newhavencvb.org.
What's the range of tools you use to market New Haven in other places - e.g., TV ads in New York?
We focus on four different types of business: conventions and meetings, groups tours, the sports market and the leisure market. Because we are literally in one of the most expensive markets in the world, we do not do a lot of advertising in New York, or anywhere else. We do piggyback with the state [Office of Tourism] and what they're doing. We are [advertising] in some national industry publications, though, that go to meeting planners or tour operators.
What are some of the sports events you are working to attract?
We're working on an AAU girls basketball tournament, for one thing.
How about the Connecticut Tennis Center, which sits empty 51 weeks a year?
We currently have a vacancy in our sales department, and we're trying to get in some talent that will be able to do well in that market. We're kind of just getting started with the sports market. It's a market we could really do well in, because we have venues for everything. Right now we're starting to look at dates those venues are open and see what might fit in.
How about marketing to the leisure market?
Coming from the Midwest, whenever I would think of New England I would think of the stone fences and the town greens, so we really try to market the whole New England experience. Yale University is a huge draw, even for the leisure market. When I told people I was moving to New Haven, they didn't necessarily know where New Haven was, but they knew that Yale University was there. There's an instant name recognition and excitement about it.
How do you work with Yale?
Our sales department works very closely with their conference-planning department. In fact, that relationship is so good that they've been asked to do a presentation at an upcoming meeting about how a university and a city, or a CVB, can work together. So the relationship is very strong.
How big is your annual budget?
About $750,000 annually.
And that's all from 1.5 percent of the hotel tax?
Well, the hotel tax that's collected is six percent. We get 1.5 percent from the towns in our region with a population of less than 65,000. We would get 3.5 percent from towns with a population of between 65,000 and 75,000 but we don't have any. We get 4.5 percent from any city over 75,000.
Meaning New Haven.
Right. But, 75 percent of the 4.5 percent goes to the Coliseum.
Any idea how your budget compares to that of the other tourism districts - for instance, Mystic Coast & Country?
I'm sure it's smaller [laughs], though I don't know exactly what their budget is.
How have you found the spirit of cooperation - or lack thereof -among your 15 member towns?
The one difference here than with other places is that in an area that is this small land-wise but has this large a population, usually you would have one city government instead of 15 different governments. There are some challenges with that. But we have to remember that visitors coming into the area do not realize when they're coming from one town to another. That's why we're able to market as a region. We can pull people in using Yale as a hook, but Orange is still going to get business,
How can we consider the New Haven district viable if it doesn't include Branford or Guilford?
We don't not promote anybody. They're not included in our visitors guide and things like that, but people easily find their way to Branford and if people wanted to know about something in Branford, we would certainly tell them.
Is anyone pressing for a proper
convention center?
I don't know that anyone here is. There's a move to put a convention center in Hartford. It would certainly be wonderful to have one. The Coliseum is very limited for conventions because there's no breakout space.
What would you like to tell the business community about your efforts and how they can be helpful?
If you belong to an organization, whether it be a business club or a service club, or you attend conventions yourself in the course of your business, call and let us know so we can find out about it - especially if you're interested in bringing it to the region. There are a lot of services we offer and if you call and say you can help bring X convention here, we'll go and do a presentation at the national level or the headquarters. We're here to help. BNH
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