C 0 N V E N T I 0 N GUIDE

WHAT KIND OF town is Dallas? An oil town? A real estate town? Yes-but more than ever before, it’s a convention town. You probably don’t think too much about these constant swarms of out-of-towners, but rest assured they’re there: Roughly a million and half conventioneers and conferees visit us every year. Convention business is big business. In 1985, conventioneers spent $761 million in Dallas alone. And more green is regularly raked in at convention centers in Fort Worth, Arlington, Hurst-Euless-Bedford and Grapevine.

Most estimates place Dallas in the number three slot in the country for volume of convention traffic. The Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau is more conservative, ranking us in the top five, along with New York, Chicago, Atlanta and New Orleans.

“Dallas is riding a fairly high crest as far as the convention trade is concerned,” says Ed Simmons, former director of convention marketing for the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau. Simmons cites factors such as the airport, the economy and the general quality of life in Dallas as making us a magnet for conventioneers. The city’s upbeat economic mood is a big plus. Dallas is the bellwether city of the business expansion throughout the Sunbelt, and convention traffic only makes us more attractive.

The Metroplex economy receives a shot in the arm from the billions of dollars spent every year by those people you see in downtown hotels all trying to check in at once. Consequently, everybody who’s got a stake in the high-dollar convention game (airlines, hotels, restaurants, convention facilities, etc.) is out there hustling for a piece of the action. On the following pages are the players who’ll make 1986 a banner year for the Metroplex convention trade.