There are many cold weather cities that have a thriving tourism and convention industry. Buffalo's weather has nothing to do with its poor economy or lack of touists

Cindy, here are the numbers. I just got them from Ed Healy, the Communications Director at CVB. They all add up to a VERY compelling case.

As a result of the 2005 cuts to the Buffalo Niagara CVB's bed tax funding, they were forced to let go 10 full-time and 6 part-time staff. They lost their director of cultural tourism, manager of multicultural community affairs, two sales executives, support and service staff and visitor center staff. They now have 18 full-time staff positions.

Remaining CVB staff all took a 10 percent pay cut and had their 401K benefit slashed.

In a typical year, the bed tax represents approximately 85 percent of CVB's total budget. Ad sales from their visitors guide, merchandise sales in their visitors center, trade show fees collected from partnering organizations and matching funds from New York State represent the remainder of their budget.

Performance metrics:

Through October they are down 48 pieces of signed convention and sports business, versus the year prior. This represents a loss of 33,500 hotel room nights and $7 million in direct economic impact in Erie County.

Significant business lost in 2005:

The Citgo Bassmaster Pro-Am did not come to Buffalo. 400 participants, thousands of spectators and an ESPN film crew representing nearly $2 million in economic impact all went to Syracuse because CVB did not have the $30,000 host fee and Jim Hanley, the Erie County Sport Fishing Coordinator, was no longer at work soliciting this type of business because his position was eliminated. (Mr. Hanley was not a CVB employee, but worked closely with the organization.) In addition, Buffalo lost extremely valuable ESPN television coverage of the tournament, which serves as free advertising for Buffalo sport fishing every time it airs. (The CVB does not include the dollar figure this represents in their calculation of direct economic impact to the region.)

I just heard from Ed Healy, Director of Communications for CVB, with the answers to Cindyis question.

Programming cuts:

They terminated their relationship with Travers Collins & Company, their locally-based advertising agency and media relations firm.

They terminated their relationship with their media relations firm specializing in cultural tourism.

They cancelled familiarization tours with approximately 30 members of the art and architecture press who were scheduled to visit Buffalo in 2005.

They cancelled a familiarization tour with 30 meeting planners who were scheduled to come to Buffalo for the weekend of the Allentown Art Festival.

They eliminated all trade advertising in national and state association publications and amateur athletics publications. An $80,000 budget was reduced to $0.

Consumer advertising was cancelled where they were able to get out of contracts. For example, ads promoting Buffalo as an architecture tourism destination were pulled from the National Trust's Preservation magazine.

Their convention sales staff participated in seven fewer trade shows in 2005. They had planned on attending 20 but were only able to afford going to 13.

All of this represents lost opportunities: opportunities to bring out of town dollars -- new money -- to Buffalo; the loss of opportunities to influence the media and change perceptions of Buffalo; the loss of opportunities to service their customers in a manner befitting a major visitor destination; the loss of opportunities to tell their story in a disciplined and consistent manner; the loss of opportunities to increase hotel occupancy, meals served in local restaurants and sales made in retail outlets and paid admissions to attractions.

And the loss of another $450,000 in bed tax funding will mean more lost opportunities -- the bleeding will continue, more staff will be let go, whatever remaining programming they have will be cut and Buffalo will fall further behind competitor cities who are all aggressively working to reinvent themselves as major tourist destinations.

Competitor cities like Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Columbus all spend $3 to $5 dollars for every $1 Buffalo is currently spending on tourism promotion. It's very hard to win a fight with one hand -- and now perhaps two -- tied behind their back.

Here is a sample of CVB budgets in competitor cities for 2005:

Pittsburgh -- $9 million

Cleveland -- $7 million

Columbus -- $6.4 million

Milwaukee -- $6 million

Cincinnati -- $4.7 million

Rochester -- $3.2 million

Buffalo -- $1.7 million

Buffalo (2006) -- $1 million

Please call a legislator. This can't happen.

BuffaloPundit, I don't disagree with you. But the CVB doesn't do a good job of marketing. A few years ago one of the most successful marketing campaigns was when the Albright-Knox organized a group marketing blitz that coincided with (I believe) the Dale Chihouly Glass exhibit, the opening of the newly expanded Shea's with Phantom of the Opera, another big show by the BPO as well as coordinated programming from dozens of smaller culturals. It was THE biggest marketing success the area ever saw, drawing tens and tens of thousands to Buffalo. Organizers reported that the CVB participated as reluctantly as someone being shoved into a burning fire.... and in spite of the enourmous success of a marketing campaign NOT created by the CVB... there was no effort by the CVB to repeat it.

Also, while I again agree with you we should market to out-of-towners... my point is that the "disproportionately large amount of cultural attractions" you say that we have are not going to be here for those tourists if continue to decimate them.... yes, it's true that some visitors to Shea's and the AKAG and the BPO and other culturals come from out of town... and they probably stay in hotels... so why not give the culturals a share of the hotel bed tax that they have helped to generate?? .... and why not get the CVB to get smarter about how and what they're marketing? .... have you specifically seen what they do with that budget? who they try and reach? how they reach out? what methods they use? the cost effectiveness? how they coordinate with culturals? Or are they only coordinating with hotel owners?

Seems to me that if the county collects the tax under the premis that it will be used to boost the industry that the money is being collected from that it would be illegal to spend that money on other things. Does the hotel industry have a court case against the county?

I do agree that the culturals not being funded is the bigger issue here, for the quality of life they provide to residents. They keep people here, and that's more important.

However, I concur that the CVB has become much savvier about promoting cultural resources, including architecture. Those fam tours produce articles nationwide--I hope no one thinks that the Bostin Globe and Atlanta Constitution just all of a sudden decide to write about Buffalo. And I know that recently they have been trying to bring the architecture/preservation conferences.

The thing is, it's ALL bad. They are cutting the wrong things. I am so sick of politicians considering these resources as "extra." They are not; they are essential.

This is a cvb video I found a while back (click here to watch).... I might not agree with everything the CVB does or their approach....but the B-lo needs them..... To have a skeleton crew of sorts is akin to shooting ourselves in da foot and makes no sense at all...

For the record, I'm the director of communications for the CVB. Here are a few facts related to the convention and tourism business in Erie County:

Nearly two million hotel rooms have been rented in Erie County in each of the last five years.

This represents approximately 3.5-4 million people visiting Erie County each year.

These people eat in our restaurants, shop in our stores, attend our festivals and visit our attractions.

Even a conservative estimate of expenditures-per-stay of $100-$150 yields an economic impact of hundreds of millions of dollars and sales tax of tens of millions of dollars, which in turn means tax relief for every taxpayer in Erie County.

These expenditures mean thousands of jobs in hotels, restaurants and attractions and payroll of tens of millions of dollars.

Although our Convention Center is small and outdated by contemporary standards it still attracts several hundred thousand visitors each year and has a profound impact on downtown hotels and restaurants. Without the visitors the Convention Center attracts many of these hotels would go dark.

Thanks to an investment in first rate sports facilities and aggressive marketing on the part of the CVB, Buffalo has an outstanding reputation as an amateur sports destination. In addition to high profile events such as NCAA basketball and hockey, Erie County routinely hosts soccer tournaments, swimming competitions, track events, softball games along with tens of thousands of participants and their families. Again, this means people in hotels, restaurants, etc.

The CVB does not "pretend" to be proud of our architecture. We work closely with the Darwin Martin House, Graycliff, Hodgson Russ, Landmark Society, Preservation Coalition, Campaign for Buffalo, New Millennium Group and other architecture stakeholders to promote Buffalo as an architecture destination. In fact, before our budget was slashed, we paid to have the Walk Buffalo brochure re-printed and have been actively working with NMG to find a sponsor to re-print it for 2006 since we went through 50,000 copies at our Visitors Center this year.

The CVB regularly hosts visiting media in an attempt to generate positive coverage for the region and raise awareness of Buffalo as an attractive destination. Recent articles about Buffalo's architecture in the Orlando Sentinel and Boston Globe were facilitated by CVB staff. City TV from Toronto was in town on Thursday doing a story on shopping in Buffalo. Again hosted by the CVB.

Finally, the bed tax is self-imposed by the hotel industry for the purpose of marketing and promoting Buffalo as a tourist destination. We are a self-funded industry and are not looking for a government hand-out, but rather the return of the dollars that our industry generates. And by the way, a portion of the bed tax that has not gone to the CVB in the past has made its way to the cultural community through the County's general fund.

I guess you can't post links...

But click on my name above in this post and you will be able to watch....is a quicktime movie....

I don't really want to continue this discussion forever... but let me just say that the fact the CVB is so reliant on hotel bed tax revenue intrinsically makes the pursuit of hotel guests a priority for the CVB's survival.... and therefore makes day trip tourism or attracting suburban arts and cultural patrons to the city of Buffalo less of a priority...... car shows, boat shows, and amatuer swim meets are limited events.... unlike ongoing visits by subscribers to theatres or gallery memberships.... nevertheless, I am not anti-CVB.... I would say a good comprise to the proposed $450,000 cut would be to put $225,000 back in the CVB budget, which was reduced, and give $225,000 back to Studio Arena which had its county funding cut to ZERO!

Put me on the side of restoring the full bed tax to the Bureau of Tourism and Conventions.

In fact, put me on the side of creating an off budget fund for a new light rail accessable Buffalo Convention Center in the First Ward.

There is a difference between an expense and an investment.

Government workers are expenses not investments.

Investments are things that yield dividends like reduced costs, better infrastructure, new jobs, development/redevelopment, etc. Most of which result in an increase in private sector economy and increase tax revenue not by increases but by broadening the tax base.

ITS ABSOLUTELY REVOLTING THAT NEITHER THE COUNTY NOR THE CITY UNDERSTANDS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN INVESTMENT OR AN EXPENSE. ATLEAST THE BUFFALO CONTROL BOARD DOES SINCE THEY HAVE FROZEN HIRING, RAISES AND BENEFITS.

THE COUNTY SHOULDNT BE RAISING TAXES OR CANABILIZING FUNDS THAT INVEST IN OUR COMMUNITY.

They should be instituting hiring freezes

They should be cooperating with the control board to freeze salaries and benefits

They should be laying off county employees, reducing county vehicles and considering the privatization of services, in effect, reducing the size of county government.

This is shameful. Absolutely shameful that absolutely no one is taking the steps to invest in our city so our families and neighborhoods can remain intact. Instead, they are protecting their patronage while families and neighborhoods dis-integrate and follow their kids as they leave town.

No wonder all government workers in Buffalo have such a superior attitude to all those employed in the private sector. Their living off the legislated taxes and the protection of political patronage while the city and county atrophy and die. Its mideival thinking...as though leaches could somehow suck out the bad blood. Well the solutions to Buffalo and Erie Counties problems will not come from government workers sucking out the bad blood to solve the problem because they are the leaches!

Institute hiring freezes, wage and benefit freezes and layoffs.

Institute mandatory elimination of non-essential county services

Do you have any statistics on how the $1.5M slash impacted the Conv & Visitors Bureau in 2005 (ie, number of layoffs, and remaining positions) and how the proposed $4K slash will impact it? Are the bed tax funds the Bureau's sole source of revenue? Do you know whether the Bureau has kept track of performance metrics that can demonstrate their loss of effectiveness due to the budget cuts. I think these factors would be essential in making a case to our legislators. Wasnt there a significant convention that was lost last year?

I apologize for not knowing these answers, but I have not yet focused on this Organization.

Cindy

I haven't read through all of the above... BUT ... in my opinion, cuts to the CVB are not the pressing issue.... first of all, if something should be cut at the CVB it should be the director who runs the organization, Rich Geiger.... completely WRONG GUY for the job.... (but that's another issue).... second, it is ridiculous for the CVB or anyone to continue marketing Buffalo while at the same time we are engaged in slashing funding to all the cultural assets we claim make it a tourist attraction.... slashing funding to the parks that make it attractive.... demolishing the architecture the CVB and the BNE and the blah, blah, blah, like to pretend they are so pround of.... the CVB doesn't spend the money they get properly anyway.... so frankly I don't have any tears for them.... I WOULD like to see the bed tax redirected to a more useful purpose.... like a dedicated and recurring funding source for the almost 60 small cultural organizations who have had their funding zeroed out entirely.... after all, if we lose all the things that make Buffalo a qualitative experience.... what the hell does the CVB think it's going to go around the country and peddle.... come visit Buffalo and check out or Gieco Telemarketers???

What Jamie Moses writes about is something I only briefly touched on somewhere up above... I do believe we need a CVB in one form or another...but I believe we should be focusing more on getting people to take weekend or day trips to the B-lo.... Market Buffalo as a nice weekend escape for people or a nice place to spend a day....there are so many possibilties as to packages we could put together for weekend getaways or day trips....different flavors for different people....but we do need some entity that can do this creatively.....I just don't think the CVB has what it takes in its current form.... We need to re-invent the way in which we market this town and whom we market it to...

Mr. Moses also touches on something that does scare me as well... The literal gutting of funding for the culturals... I honestly don't know that without some level of funding if WNY can sustain these just on donations and patronage.... A lot of these institutions were established when Buffalo and WNY's population was higher and when we had a lot more philothranpic geech (money) running through town...

I don't know if you really are Jamie Moses, but that's an excellent impression, all the way down to the "I don't know what I'm talking about but I'll babble on about it anyhow" brio.

You should read what's been posted, whoever you are. There are lots of examples of ROI and lost opportunity because our CVB wasn't funded at levels anywhere near the levels of cities our type and size.

And if you're going to crap all over an organization and claim they don't properly use funds, why don't you cite examples that directly counter the points you didn't even bother to read?

As for personnel matters and competence, why don't you...[edited by Buffalo Rising]

Hello Ed... I wondered when you would weigh in... the amatuer sports piece is a good example of CVB success.... the failure to repeat the success recorded by the cultural effort led by the Albright-Knox under Carol Halter's leadership (I believe before you went to the CVB) is a good example of the CVB failure.... to use your own words.... "Finally, the bed tax is self-imposed by the hotel industry for the purpose of marketing and promoting Buffalo as a tourist destination. We are a self-funded industry and are not looking for a government hand-out, but rather the return of the dollars that our industry generates. "

That is exactly the way the culturals feel! I apologize if I appear to be on the attack against the CVB. But my first choice is to be an advocate for the arts and culturals - not Hart Hotels and Paul Snyder at the Hyatt.

that's the most spiteful vindictive mis-directed blog response I've read yet.

Jamie: A couple of points. The CVB has evolved as an organization enormously over the course of the last five years so I don't think your Dale Chihuly example from the '90s is fair or accurate. While we do spend a considerable amount of time marketing Buffalo as a convention and amateur sports destination (this type of business is contracted well in advance of its actually taking place and serves as a kind of foundation for less reliable leisure and corporate business at the hotels), we also spend significant staff time and financial resources marketing Buffalo as a cultural and heritage tourism destination to leisure travelers. Simply put, it's what we have and who we are as a community. I would point you to our 2005 visitors guide which orients potential visitors to Buffalo through a ten-page introduction to five experience clusters: art, architecture, theater and performing arts, history and Niagara Falls. We've also added a feature to the guide in which Buffalonians or former Buffalonians who have achieved some renown in the arts, journalism and other fields reflect on what they love best about our city. We call this feature My Buffalo and A.R. Gurney, Tom Dudzick, Lauren Belfer, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Tom Fontana and Robby Takac, among others, have all contributed insightful and in some cases inspiring anecdotes about the city they still feel very passionately about. Better sales people for Buffalo can't be found. I would also point you in the direction of our African-American Heritage Guide and the Walk Buffalo guide as examples of the CVB's ongoing commitment to cultural and heritage tourism.

As to your point that we never sought to repeat the Chihuly campaign, that's simply not the case. In 2003, the CVB sought and was granted designation as the I Love New York summer festival site. The resulting marketing campaign, One Summerlong Sensation, was the largest cultural tourism initiative ever organized in this community. It was presided over by a task force that included representatives from the Albright-Knox, Burchfield-Penney, BPO, BECHS, Museum of Science, the Arts Council, Shea's and the CVB. This was the summer of Art on Wheels, Dinomania and the Phillips Collection at AKAG and it attracted thousands of visitors to the area and generated several million dollars worth of media coverage for Buffalo in publications all around the U.S. and Canada.

We hope to build on that experience during the coming year with a media relations campaign centered around the completion of the re-constructions at the Martin House and the other exciting architecture-oriented developments at Asbury Delaware Church, Graycliff, the Roycroft Campus, the FLW Boathouse and Buffalo's incredible inventory of turn of the century neighborhoods featured in walking tours by PresCo, Landmark Society and the Campaign for Buffalo. These groups will all be our partners and collaborators in this undertaking and our goal is position Buffalo as a must-see architecture destination.

As for Paul Snyder and David Hart: if our marketing efforts result in more people staying in their hotels, we know we've done our job and delivered a tangible benefit to those businesses, their employees, and the community. But no one travels simply to stay in a hotel. People want to have an interesting, entertaining or enlightening experience such as those offered by the Martin House, CEPA, the Michigan Street Baptist Church, Studio Arena and other cultural and heritage attractions. For that reason, our staff spends far more time closely working with Louis Grachos, Ken Neufeld, John Courtin, Lawrence Brose and our other colleagues in the cultural community than we do with hotel general managers.

Jamie: I think the most short-sighted thing that a financially struggling, shrinking region that happens to have a disproportionately large amount of cultural attractions can do is stop marketing itself.

Studio Arena, Kleinhans, Shea's, et al. don't rely solely on local asses to fill those seats. Albright Knox, Greycliff and Darwin Martin may have limited (non-profit) promotion budgets of their own, but the county should also be able to aggressively market these desitations to people in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Ontario.

Your proposal for what to do with the bed tax is exactly what should _not_ be done with the bed tax . The bed tax - paid for by out of towners - should, at least in part, be spent to attract yet more out of towners.

Our slogan can be:

Buffalo. We're too fiscally mismanaged to have a proper slogan.

You're right, the pursuit of hotel guests is our priority. Bringing out of town visitors and out of town dollars -- new money -- to Erie County is what we do. That's our role as an economic development agency. But keep in mind that those hotel guests also shop on Elmwood, eat at Rue Franklin, go to shows at Studio, etc. It's not just about heads in beds. As to attracting suburban arts patrons to Buffalo, you need to recognize the distinction between destination marketing and local audience development. We do the former. A disabled CVB is not in anyone's interests and a crippled cultural community is not in anyone's interests. The county legislature needs to do the right thing and recognize the importance of both tourism and the cultural community to the future well being of Erie County. I hope we can agree on that.

SickOfYou... hmmm... well I guess you told me.... I am reluctant to respond to someone who is too cowardly to have a name.... I have an opinion and I don't need to hide.... please be kind enough to extend the same courtesy if you're going to make personal attacks on me.... nevertheless, I will take a moment to categorically go through your little rant.... 1- yes I am jamie moses 2- I didn't read everything that's been posted because I read what the issue under dicussion is, and I don't feel I need to see what everyone else's opinion is before I form my own. 3- I'm sure you may be right that there are past cases of lost opportunity because the CVB wasn't funded at levels competitive with other cites... but that wasn't my point, was it? 4 - if you want examples of CVB not making the best choices, there are many.... one would be the ridiculous amount of time and money spent on studies, politicking, and media to try and get a new convention center built in Buffalo... the CVB refused to be persuaded by facts that a new convention center in Buffalo was not the best way for us to spend $100 million plus... even if we had it... that conventions are down all over the country... that visitors are here a couple of days and disappear forever and other than hotels don't really have a sustained impact on the city..... that Buffalo is basically NOT convention friendly simply because of the weather... and so on and so forth.... 5- we do pay employees... most are paid quite well, thank you.... it's true that in the first few years Artvoice was almost entirely volunteer... that has not been the case for years.... as for the significance of the newspaper..... many people, rightly or wrongly, feel we contributed to stopping the Twin Span... keeping Mark Hamister from buying the Sabres... electing Brian Higgins.... getting the NYPA issue out front.... fighting to stop the demolition of the AM&As building..... putting the heat on the NFTA when they were going to lease[ the Niagara Falls Airport to some company from Spain for 99 years for a measley $10 million .... to name a few... 6- you are being presumptuous as to trips being written off... and not surprisingly, you are wrong 7 - as for your references to cadavers.... and your explosive and vitriolic flourish at the end of a message that began almost moderately.... I don't know what to say... it almost sounds like I stole your girlfriend or something... sorry.... as for the television... I was very tired.... and yes, I rubbed my face too much... that was so I could stay awake... I had to write all my questions.... and all of the other questions... and make all the arrangements for the debate... so I had only slept three hours in two days.... good luck, whoever you are... I hope I helped heal some of.... whatever it is that ails you.... 8. So now that I have gone through this entirely stupid excercise of responding to SickOfYou.... I would like to just restate the case for what should be done with the bed tax:

it is ridiculous for the CVB or anyone to continue marketing Buffalo while at the same time we are engaged in slashing funding to all the cultural assets we claim make it a tourist attraction.... slashing funding to the parks that make it attractive.... demolishing the architecture the CVB and the BNE and the blah, blah, blah, like to pretend they are so pround of.... the CVB doesn't spend the money they get properly anyway.... so frankly I don't have any tears for them.... I WOULD like to see the bed tax redirected to a more useful purpose.... like a dedicated and recurring funding source for the almost 60 small cultural organizations who have had their funding zeroed out entirely.... after all, if we lose all the things that make Buffalo a qualitative experience.... what the hell does the CVB think it's going to go around the country and peddle.... come visit Buffalo and check out or Gieco Telemarketers???

EL is right on!

They are cutting the WRONG things! We continue with OLD BUFFALO thinking about "what was" and "how it's always been done before."

3.5-4 million visitors......a buck a piece.......$3.5-4 million dollars!

Split it-part to cultural institutions, part to marketing. Why is everything SO contentious and either/or? Why not ALL of the above?

.