On the heels of downtown Dallas hosting both the North American debut of the New Cities Summit, which welcomed 800 invited attendees from more than 50 countries, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which hosted over 200 U.S. mayors in June, North Texas, Dallas, and downtown have received positive coverage from around the nation and the world.
These two events, of course, fall into the category of “Big Things Happen Here,” and just being selected to host these events is a collective big win for the region. According to the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau, the events brought 2,500 people into the city. They spent several million dollars while they were here, generating $330,000 in local tax revenue. The CVB also said the Summit generated more than 300 global media stories, most of them positive. That coverage, if paid for, would have cost more than $9.5 million.
You don’t get any hits unless you get up to bat. We’ll see how this plays out based on the feedback over the next few weeks, but I suspect we will enjoy more base hits than strike outs, and we might even see a few home runs.
And speaking of big things happening here, we also hosted 30,000 attendees for the National Baptist Convention at the same time, which did not get a lot of attention due to the focus on the other two events. However, this is certainly another example of attracting more and bigger conventions, and we should not lose sight of the impact of the convention and tourism business as we continue to focus on creating a new mosaic for the future.
