A new spin on travel and tourism.

Stephen Carey, CAE, president and chief executive officer of IACVB, talks positioning, priorities, and partnership for today's convention and visitor bureau - and the whole hospitality world.

Every day, associations book and hold meetings in cities around the world. If you're among them, you know how important convention and visitor bureaus are for supplying information about their cities' facilities, accommodations, and attractions. So what's a source of information and assistance to the CVBs? IACVB.

Nineteen ninety-four was a milestone year for the International Association of Convention and Visitor Bureaus, which celebrated its 80th anniversary, moved its headquarters from Champaign, Illinois, to Washington, D.C., and secured a new leader. Stephen Carey, CAE, took charge as president and chief executive officer in July, after serving for a year as IAGVB president designate. The organization - which represents 415 member bureaus in 27 countries and has an annual operating budget of $2.5 million and 14 full-time staff - has a hand on every part of the travel and tourism plate. ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT thought you'd like to hear more from the man at the helm of the association whose members help keep the convention industry in motion.

Carey: The main appeal was the tremendous opportunity in growth and in industry position that IAGVB could conceivably go through within the next 10-15 years. The travel and tourism and convention industry is really in its infancy when you take a look at world markets and future economic generators. You'll find critics who say that statistics are deceiving since the numbers put out by various groups about the same kinds of indicators are different. But when you're talking about $900 billion dollars, even if those statistics are off by $25 billion, those are still tremendous figures. When you look at where travel and tourism has been during the past 10 years, where it is now, and what the projections are, you see almost immediately that this is a growth industry.

ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT: How did your role at GWSAE prepare you for taking this position?

Carey: For one, there was a similarity in management function. When I first went to GWSAE, we were in a position very similar to when I first came to IACVB in terms of our marketplace as an allied society of association executives. There was so much for us to do, and we methodically went about identifying our markets, looking at our customer base, finding the products and services that were important to our customers, and then delivering those products and services. Regardless of the organization that you're in, those are the basics. If you can identify and satisfy those needs, you're going to be doing the job you were hired to do.

GWSAE also prepared me by giving me access to the industry - the opportunity to meet the players and to sit around the industry campfires and listen to what the leaders were saying and in which direction they were headed. My current members were and are GWSAE suppliers and service providers.

ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT: What is the advantage to IACVB being located in Washington, D.C.?

Carey: When IACVB first contemplated moving its headquarters, we were just starting to really grow as an organization and to identify strategic issues and areas important to our membership. As time went on, members began to feel that we needed to establish a presence. I don't care what anybody tells you, when your association is located in a destination of tremendous importance strategically and economically to any nation, it's going to provide access for your association to the people and players at the highest governmental levels. Being in Washington affords IACVB that opportunity with U.S. legislators and with others around the world in other capitals.

We looked at Chicago and New York as well, both of which would have been great. All three are international centers. I think that's an area we need to work on within our industry - our total industry - remembering that we are part of a world community and not just part of one continent or one country. When I say international, I mean Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Miami as much as I mean Rome, Paris, and London.

ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT: What is the biggest challenge facing the convention and visitor bureau community today, and how does IACVB plan to address it?

Carey: One of the biggest challenges we have is self-identity. How do we want to organize ourselves in the future? There are those who will tell you that we are a fragmented industry - that we're all looking out for our own piece of the pie and that it's not going to be possible for us to pull together in the future to attack common goals and objectives. Others will tell you that each of our organizations is its own island but that we do a good job of building bridges among each other and that therefore we are unified - you just have to go one level down to see it.

The fact is, we really aren't unified in the way the latter definition suggests, and we're struggling to get away from the former. Understanding that is critical to how we are going to behave ourselves as an industry in the future so that we can project to the world community that the hospitality industry is something to be reckoned with.

The issues that we face as an industry are magnified when you look around the country and around the world at the various governmental entities and how those entities deal with travel and tourism and conventions. For example, the White House Conference on Travel and Tourism is coming up this October, and many of the states are out there right now organizing their bodies and getting their delegates together [see the special report on the White House Conference on Travel and Tourism, this issue].

If you look at the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration (USTTA), which is actually charged on the governmental side with putting together that private-public partnership, you'll see that its budget has been cut this year by $1 million. That goes to show you the kind of clout our industry has on Capital Hill when we can't even get Congress to keep an $18 million budget. The federal government actually does little to help promote travel and tourism here in the United States.

On the other side of the ocean, one of our counterparts, the European Federation of Conference Towns, has exactly the same problems in that locale. In all the treaties, the EC '92 documentation that's been written, and in administrative regulations and so forth, the words travel and tourism do not even appear.

ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT: What must be done to increase this lack of attention given to the travel and tourism industry?

Carey: We have to get together to make the government leaders here and elsewhere understand the importance that travel and tourism is going to play in the 21st century - and not far into the 21st century but at the turn of it. We have to get through some of these mental barriers that our government leaders around the world have in thinking that travel and tourism is just going to happen by itself, that there really isn't a job base attached to our industry, and that these billions of dollars are going to be here whether or not we have a travel and tourism industry. And the cloud that follows our industry will always be there until we get to the point where as an industry we are willing to commit funds and bodies to make a difference.

On a brighter note, I do think we're going to get there. When you look around at the industry attitude that prevails today, you're beginning to see a number of coalitions, strategic partnerships, and organizations beginning to think, "Rather than compete with the product line of a similar organization, why don't I join forces with that organization so that we can create a product that is good for us both?"

ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT: In regard to the upcoming White House Conference on Travel and Tourism, how are the priorities for CVBs different from those of the overall travel industry?

Carey: We're interested in all the issues that are put forth in such a conference, because everything associated with travel, tourism, and conventions is going to affect the convention and visitor bureau and the city in which it is located. Having said that, I think that among the major issues concerning convention and visitor bureaus will be the fragmentation of our industry. We want to ensure that our industry speaks with one voice to the various legislative and media constituents we have so that our voice is not watered down or taken for granted.

Another critical issue for us is that of jobs. The prevailing attitude on Capitol Hill and in nations' capitals around the world is that travel and tourism doesn't produce the kinds of mid- to high-level jobs that other industries do. We have jobs at every level of the spectrum the same as other industries.

What is encouraging is that USTTA has selected CVBs as being a key partner in the White House conference by awarding our industry 60-plus delegates. In addition, nine CVB chief executive officers will be part of the forums charged with putting together the issue papers in each of the areas that the conference will address.

ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT: How do you manage a membership where many of your members are very competitive, and what would be your advice to another association chief executive whose membership likewise has competing interests?

Carey: I don't think there's really much difference between managing a group like IACVB and managing another trade or professional association. We all deal with legal issues such as antitrust, for instance, to ensure that our members are minding their p's and q's. Once an individual company or bureau or association executive comes into a room with like individuals, I don't think the chemistry is much different from industry to industry in terms of how you actually manage that group.

If you talk to a number of association executives, I think you'll hear the same thing over and over: As competitive or as different as members are in the variety of associations they represent, once they put on that association hat, you really do see, for the most part, that one-for-all and all-for-one spirit. They're representing and attending to industry kinds of challenges and not personal company problems.

ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT: How does IACVB advise its members to manage competition for association shows and business?

Carey: The advice that IACVB gives to members is this: You look at each offer that comes across your table; you decide how that offer is going to enhance your destination in this activity; and you make your decisions accordingly.

Each CVB has its own marketplace issues to address depending on whether it's a large destination or a smaller destination or a destination somewhere in between. So they try to make economic marketing decisions based on the best return that their destinations are going to have. And they have to look carefully at the resources they have available to apply to bring people and groups to their destinations. Then they have to look to each of the associations in each of the functional areas that are important to them. And finally, they have to make some tough decisions: Do I give X amount of dollars to one because I feel it has the marketplace for our destination, or do I split those dollars among four or five associations? The more that those associations ask for big dollars, the harder it is on my members to make those values-determining decisions.

This becomes a very big question when the foundations of those associations are asking for $10,000-$50,000 donations. Our members have to ask: If I don't give one of these organizations money, is it going to be perceived that I don't support it? The last thing any of our destinations want to do is to make those client organizations that feed our tables feel bad or feel that we don't support them. But my members are no different from anyone else's in today's economy - they look for every single nickel that they can save their communities.

Take ASAE's foundation, PCMA's [Professional Convention Management Association] foundation, and MPI's [Meeting Professionals International] foundation, for instance. Close to $2 million that goes to those organizations will come and has come from IACVB members from various destinations around the world. Our members ask themselves, if these organizations have essentially the same missions and are doing essentially the same kinds of things for their members, why should we be contributing to three separate pots? IACVB is for strategic relationships and strategic alliances. Perhaps we could form an overall foundation for the industry, and then we could all put our money into that foundation's pot. Then we could dole out funds to the projects, programs, and services that the entire hospitality and travel and tourism industry needs.

ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT: What tips would you give to another association executive in regard to forming global and industry partnerships?

Carey: As the globalization of the world economy continues to heat up, we're finding that developing markets are driving everything. And each one of us has to look toward those markets and ensure that we're forming the appropriate partnerships. For example, there are economic "gangs" forming on a regional and a subregional basis in order to maximize their resources. Depending on where your industry segment is in its international operations, as time goes on, you'll have to be very cognizant of these gangs.

This type of economic activity indicates a need for global kinds of training. We need to be able to speak with individuals from every nation in the world as best we can. If you're running an international headquarters and you don't represent 8-10 languages on staff, then you should gear up to do so. As for world etiquette, the more languages you know, the more efforts you will make to understand different peoples from different countries. It amazes me that here in the United States, for the most part, we still don't put "USA" on our business cards. How does someone from a non-U.S. country identify where a city or state is located unless they're completely cognizant of the 50 states and the thousands of cities therein?

As for industry partnerships, if an association is not looking now to form strategic alliances with other associations in its industry segment, it's going to be quite a bit behind the times during the next several years. The trend toward 21st-century thinking puts us in a position where we have to look for partners across the board, to find those who have the resources we can use to maximize the benefits not only of our own associations but also of other associations and organizations. And unless we seek out and establish those partnerships now, we're soon going to find ourselves pretty isolated within our own industries.

Karla Boyers is associate editor of ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT.