Vol. 5, No. 4, April 2008
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Marketing that Made A Difference
In 2007, these dedicated people helped spread the word about Atlantic City—and the results were remarkable
It’s a tradition we started last year, and I’m happy to say that this year’s Second Annual Marketing Review, held March 18 at the Atlantic City Convention Center, was just as successful. The Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority invited industry leaders and ACCVA marketing partners to review the successes of 2007 and hear what the authority has planned for the future.
Since not everyone could attend that meeting, let’s reiterate our past successes and future goals here. We all know that 2007 was a very challenging year for Atlantic City. But while the environment is changing, I think the ACCVA staff and Atlantic City as a whole are rising to the challenge in a host of important areas.
Convention Development
The ACCVA’s Convention Development Department enjoyed major successes in 2007. Bookings of future conventions, trade shows and meetings have all increased thanks to the hard work of our dedicated staff. Estimated room nights generated in 2007 for future dates increased by 32 percent as compared to 2006. Delegate spending was also up by 51 percent, and attendance increased by 42 percent. Booked in 2007, future delegate spending will be more than $171 million. Convention development is a forward-thinking business. The future is definitely bright because these large increases show that the convention center business in Atlantic City is growing.
For 2008, Vice President of Convention Development Gary Musich and his sales team are looking to grow convention business by 5 percent and hotel-based convention room nights by one-fifth. Convention Development also projects a 40 percent growth in convention center square footage sold. To accomplish this, they will renew their efforts in New York and Atlanta.
Also, with the reopening of the ACCVA’s Washington, D.C., office, the Convention Development Department projects a 15 percent growth in leads generated out of that market. We will continue to optimize internet marketing targeted to group buyers with the redesigned www.meetinac.com as the total meeting resource.
Marketing and Media Relations
As vice president of marketing, Maureen Siman also related many successes in 2007. Maureen oversees many departments: Media Relations, Tourism, Graphic Services, E-marketing, Golf Marketing, Visitor Services and Marketing Partnership.
Let’s begin with Media Relations. By working with individual media inquiries and visits, four familiarization group tours, our annual New York City media event and outreach to major news outlets, this department helped generate a tremendous amount of interest in Atlantic City. In 2007, the department hosted 45 members of the media, which helped account for the 533 articles written about Atlantic City—that includes 43 million in print circulation and nearly 85 million online.
Among other goals for 2008, Media Relations will aggressively seek coverage for Atlantic City by expanding outreach to Washington, D.C., the Baltimore metropolitan area, central Pennsylvania and southern New England with the help of its public relations agency, Lou Hammond & Associates.
Membership in the ACCVA’s Marketing Partnership program increased dramatically in 2007. We signed 70 new members in 2007, an increase of almost 20 percent. And we will continue to offer enhanced services to our partners including educational seminars, networking events, mailings and cooperative advertising opportunities.
Tourism
Tourism will continue to educate the motor coach market, group tour leaders, multicultural tour operators and niche markets about Atlantic City in 2008. One of the most exciting projects we’re working on is the new Visitor Profile Study currently under way. Results will be released later this year. We’re in the planning stages of an Atlantic City Restaurant Week for 2009. Also in 2009, the Atlantic 10 Men’s Basketball Championships at Boardwalk Hall will continue, to the delight of all involved.
The ACCVA has made tremendous strides in promoting the area as a golf destination by continuing to market the Greater Atlantic City Golf Association (www.gacga.com). In 2007, there were 13,587 total rounds booked through the GACGA—that’s an increase of 16.6 percent over 2006 and includes 11,079 package rounds and 2,508 tee time-only rounds. We will continue to maximize our new role to help promote Atlantic City as a great golf destination in 2008.
The Visitors Centers on the Atlantic City Expressway and on the Boardwalk at Boardwalk Hall had 174,000 visitors walk through the doors, as opposed to only 166,000 in 2006. Inquiries by e-mail increased to 61,000 over 43,000 the previous year.
Our website, www.atlanticcitynj.com, also saw an increase in visitors by 10 percent. Of those who visited the website, nearly 1.6 million people soon came for a visit, an increase of 18 percent compared to 2006.
Among the many awards the ACCVA and Boardwalk Hall garnered in 2007 are a few that mean the most because they come from the public and the media. They include the readers of the Baltimore Sun who agreed Atlantic City has one of the Best Boardwalks. Sherman’s Travel named Atlantic City one of its Top 10 Gambling Getaways. And Billboard Magazine named Boardwalk Hall the highest-grossing mid-size arena in North America, the third highest in the world. No wonder Atlantic City is the fourth most-visited destination in the United States.
