Two articles about conventions in smaller cities from today’s news:

Sacramento’s Convention Business Picking Up

High hotel rates in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco are driving many planners to select smaller cities like Sacramento for meetings and conventions, officials said.

Sacramento is among the top five smaller cities seeing the biggest growth in inquiries from groups looking to hold meetings.

“It absolutely is a cost savings to come here,” said Tina McCarty of the Sacramento Convention Center

Small cities welcome big conventions: Northern Colorado tourism leaders hope region takes advantage of trend. A snip:

Exorbitant hotel room rates in places such as New York and Washington are a good thing for Northern Colorado, said Jim Clark, chief executive officer of the Fort Collins Convention & Visitors Bureau. Clark said he expected the trend of conferences moving to smaller cities.

“We’re hoping that wave catches up with us soon here,” Clark said.

As someone who used to work in Fort Collins, I’d give it a big two thumbs up for small conferences. There may not be much downhill skiing, but the mountains are gorgeous, access to Estes Park easy (in the summer), and the people are great. And the room rates are a lot cheaper than some other mountain destinations.

As the sellers market continues to drag prices upward for the big-city destinations, I bet we’ll see more of the second- and third-tier trend for conferences and conventions small enough to fit into them.

Update: I forgot I had this one from USAToday sitting in my in-box: Smaller cities roll out red carpet for big conventions.

There’s an excellent story in the New York Times about all the various sites and blogs that provide travel reviews, mostly from people like you and me instead of professional reviewers. Some of the sites it recommends are:

IgoUgo.com (the writer’s favorite), TripAdvisor.com, HoboTraveler.com, AirlineMeals.net, OffbeatTravel.com, WomensTravelClub.com, and TravelPod.com.

I also like HotelChatter.com, which seems to have a celebrity fixation, but also lots of fun and quirky hotel stuff. I wouldn’t give up the site inspection any time soon, though. Everyone has their own bias, and what might make one reviewer nuts might not bother your attendees at all, and vice versa.

When I read this story about the Unite Here labor union’s plans to boycott The Phoenician in Scotsdale, along with speculation that the union plans to put national attention on Hilton, Marriott and Starwood, parent of the Phoenician, the Westin Kierland, and Sheraton Wild Horse Pass resorts and the soon-to-be W Scottsdale, I thought about Ken Cammarata, business manager, American Society of Head and Neck Radiology.

I talked with Ken not too long ago for an article about meetings that were scheduled to be held in New Orleans in summer 2006 and beyond—a “should we stay or should we go?” type of thing. Ken’s organization decided to move its 300-attendee meeting from the Sheraton New Orleans to the Wild Horse Pass Resort and Spa in Phoenix. His meeting’s dates aren’t until fall, so hopefully if any union actions are taken, it’ll all be over by then (and the article does say that only The Phoenician is targeted at this point). But I’d hate to think, after having to move the meeting once already, that it would run into any more potential problems.

Forty-three Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau staff members have left over the past two years, according to this article. That’s more than half its entire staff, and it’s happening as group business is taking off in that town, the bureau has the new McCormick Place addition that’s opening next year to market in addition to its work for the convention center, and it’s facing more competition from New York’s Javits Center, among other cities’ expansions and new convention center construction. Of course, fingers are pointing all over the place when it comes to placing blame for the turnover. It seems to have really gotten rolling after chief executive Jim Reilly left two years ago, leaving the CTB under the leadership of Christopher Bowers. Tim Roby, whose background is in hotel sales and marketing, will have his work cut out for him in pulling it all together when he takes over the reins this spring.

The situation reminds me a little of what’s been happening at some of the meeting planning industry organizations lately, with all the leadership churn and the loss of some key staff people. We’ll probably never know for sure what all the reasons are behind the turnovers, which makes nosy people like me crazy. But PCMA seems to be settling in under Deborah Sexton (Chicago CTB’s ex-president), and hopefully Roby will have a similar effect on the CTB. Under temporary leadership for now and with a restructuring in its near future, more staffing shakeups seem likely for MPI, though.

This could be pretty dire, if it comes true. According to an article in the New York Daily News, the national Unite Here labor union is urging its locals to strike specifically negotiate separately with Hilton properties this summer as part of its campaign to leverage its muscle when the contract in several cities come due. From the article:

“We’ve decided to isolate Hilton because they are the most recalcitrant and belligerent employer in the industry,” said Peter Ward, president of the New York Hotel Trades Council…

Labor agreements with the city’s 25,000 hotel workers expire July 1. But bargaining starts later this month, and Ward has already made it clear to the hotel owners association that he will insist on two separate sets of talks - one with Hilton and one with everybody else.

And New York is not the only place the Hilton chain is facing the isolation treatment.

Other locals of UNITE-HERE, the national hotel workers union, are pursuing the same strategy in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Boston, Chicago and Washington.

Watch for this fight to heat up as time for the contracts to expire grows closer.

In other labor union news: Change to Win Unions Mobilize at More than 100 Hotels in Support of Hotel Workers Rising Campaign. This time, they’re targeting non-union Hiltons and Starwood properties.

Update: One of my colleagues has been following up on this, and neither Unite Here nor Hilton is talking. I’m guessing the New York Hotel Trades Council spoke out of turn on this one.

According to the Times-Picayune, New Orleans officials and hoteliers are hosting some meeting planner fams over Mardi Gras both to thanks those who have committed to bringing groups to the city, and to show those still on the fence that it’s ready for business.

If New Orleans can seize the opportunity to show visiting meeting planners and Carnival revelers alike that the city can handle an event as logistically complex as Mardi Gras, the thinking goes, it will win back their confidence and their business. With hundreds of television cameras trained on New Orleans, the city hopes to showcase its deep cultural traditions, food and music to shatter negative perceptions created after the storm. Without the free news media opportunities, groups such as the short-staffed Tourism Marketing Corp. and New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau probably wouldn’t be able to battle the perception problems because their tourism tax-dependent budgets have been slashed.

But even some hoteliers have lingering doubts that they can pull it off, what with damage and debris still littering the streets and a dearth of workers to take care of guests. I’m wishing you all well down in NOLA, and here’s hoping it all works out.

OK, I just got this press release about a very cute Super Bowl bet between the Pittsburgh and Seattle CVBs and had to share:

The losing city’s CVB will congratulate – and help promote – the winning city in numerous ways, including via telephone, Web site, advertising and personal appearances. For instance, the losing city’s convention and visitors bureau will hang banners or fly the flag of the winning team for one week in their offices. The losing city’s bureau staff will dress in the winning city’s colors for a day and a group photo will be posted on both the winning and losing CVB Web sites.

Both CVB Web sites will reflect the “Destination Challenge,” with the losing city’s Web site providing a link to the CVB Web site of the winning city. The CEO of the winning CVB will be made an “Honorary CEO” for the week at the losing CVB. Telephones at the losing city CVB will be answered for a day in a playful manner that reflects the winning team name or CVB. An official announcement from a city official will proclaim the day to be the “Winning City’s CVB Day.”

While details are still being worked out, the losing CEO will make a video appearance at the winning city’s CVB dressed, of course, in the winning team’s jersey.

“First and foremost, this destination challenge is to celebrate the great success of the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers. In the world of sports and entertainment it doesn’t get much bigger than the Super Bowl,” said Don Welsh, president & CEO, Seattle’s Convention and Visitors Bureau. “Our respective communities and our millions of fans take pride in the fact that our two cities are playing in the Super Bowl. Plus, this is also the perfect event to showcase the diverse and rich offerings that each of our cities provides to convention attendees and visitors from around the world. May the best team win!”

See, isn’t that cute?

I’m liking the Hilton San Francisco, where I’m staying for the Alliance for CME annual meeting this week. The place is enormous, but for some reason I’m finding it easy to get around, which is highly unlike me. Usually, in a place this big, I end up wishing for a bag of bread crumbs to leave a trail. They’re also doing a really good job, so far, with this meeting, which is a feat given that, up until a few months ago, it was to be held in New Orleans. Just don’t order the room-service pizza, like I did last night. Either it was a little off, or it just didn’t go well with watching CSI. Hmm.

Since things didn’t get going until this afternoon, I spent a good chunk of the morning wandering the streets of San Francisco. Other than a plethora of panhandlers, this is one great walking city. And shopping. Just don’t let me back into Nordstroms, where there’s a disappointed salesperson still looking to sell me a suit a just loved, until I found out it cost $2,000! Call me New England frugal, but that’s a bit rich for my blood, not to mention my wallet. But it was so great to be able to wander around without a coat—gotta love this California weather!

Quick airline note: The van driver got stuck in all kinds of traffic yesterday, and we didn’t get to the airport until 8:45 a.m. My flight was at 9. I was resigned to waiting for the 3 p.m., but the person at the counter said to give it a try since I just had carry-on, so I sauntered through security and down to the gate, never dreaming that I’d get on the plane. But I did, can you believe it? That kind of thing never happens to me. And then, since the plane was nowhere near full, I got three whole seats to myself. It was almost better than flying first class (almost).

This review from hotwire.com gives a rundown on the best cities for bargain-loving travelers&@8212;your attendees, perhaps? And some of the results are a little surprising, at least to me. Here are the top five: Denver, Colo., Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C., Raleigh-Durham, N.C., Knoxville, Tenn., and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Sarasota, Fla. Even L.A. made the top 10.

(Thanks to Gary for the pointer.)

In anticipation of slowed growth in tourism due to high oil prices for us frozen northern folks who have to save our pennies for utilities instead of vacations (boo!), Visit Florida is concentrating its efforts on getting the convention market to come on down, according to this News-Journal article. But there still linger the spectres of hurricanes past and future, which has made a lot of planners skittish, and understandably so. But while Daytona Beach isn’t getting much in the way of bookings during hurricane season, it is picking up some more winter meetings, the article says.

Why am I writing about this? Well, it’s cold here in Massachusetts and I just like thinking about Florida about now. Pardon me while I go get some orange juice to complete the illusion.