the cvb exec

Barry H. Biggar, CDME - Speaking a common language
Spring 2007

BARRY H. BIGGAR, CDME is president & CEO of the Bryan-College Station Convention & Visitors Bureau and chairs the Destination Marketing Association International’s Accreditation Program Board.

MPG: What led you into the hospitality industry?

Barry: When I was in grade 12, I had two careers in mind. One was banking and finance the other was hospitality - hotel and restaurant management. Upon graduation I decided to pursue a career in finance. I worked in a bank for several years in the early ‘80’s - a very unstable time in the Canadian economy. There were a variety of things I needed to do in my job that I didn’t feel very comfortable doing.

At that point I left banking and I was hired by a client of the bank in retail sales – tuxedo rentals. We increased the business so much that our inventory didn’t match our business. We were putting wedding parties in tuxedos that were 30 years old. That didn’t sit very well with me so I came back to my second career choice - hotel and restaurant management. About three years into the hotel business, I learned about convention and visitors bureaus and was very fortunate to get hired by the Calgary CVB. My very first job was the manager responsible for all of Europe.

What are your thoughts about the state of international tourism into the U.S.?
To be frank, I do not think our country is doing enough to attract overseas visitors to the U.S. I’m a firm believer that a major presence through a national entity needs to be in place in order to attract the very lucrative and high yield international visitors.

One Japanese traveler will spend as much as ten Americans. Germans get six weeks of vacation as soon as they begin their working careers. When Germans visit the U.S., they aren’t here for three or four days, they stay for two weeks. That is a huge impact.

We also have a grave situation as to how the USA is viewed by our international friends. A recent Time Magazine article showed the countries around the world and the favorability of the US in their eyes and it is not very positive. We need to do everything we can to change their often inaccurate perceptions.

On a regional basis, there is a chance that SMU may serve as host of the George W. Bush Library. We have the George H. W. Bush Library in College Station, the LBJ Library in Austin, and the Clinton Center in Little Rock.

Could that provide an opportunity for more international travelers to visit this region?
Absolutely, travelers want experiences, they want educational experiences, they want to learn as much as they enjoy. Having four presidential libraries within one very easy driving area could be amazing.

You’re serving as the chair for the Destination Marketing Association International’s Accreditation Program Board. What issues are you and your board addressing?
CVBs are truly destination marketing organizations. There was a time when we were going through a number of credibility issues. DMAI recognized that in order to reverse the problem and stop the erosion of trust and confidence in our organizations, we needed to put a variety of new tools into place.

One of the most important was standardizing performance measurements and insuring that DMOs use the same measurements of performance and accountability, and the definition of industry terms. It was very eye opening when we asked the industry “how do you define a lead, or a tentative or definite booking?” and we got 20 to 30 different definitions. We realized that in order to improve our credibility we needed to get this articulated and put into place.

We also found that from one bureau to the next customers are getting totally different types or levels of service. How can meeting planners have confidence in us if we are providing such different services from one destination to another?

The next thing we needed to do was to insure that all of these tools of standardization and best practices were being implemented, so we embarked on an accreditation program. A group was formed to build a program insuring that the best practices are adopted and utilized and those that comply would be accredited.

We also heard from so many meeting planners that they had a problem with bureaus regarding receiving massive amounts of unsolicited literature from their members. One of the elements an accredited bureau provides their meeting planner clients is a way to “opt out” of receiving unsolicited membership information.

What have you heard from hoteliers about the “opt out” procedure?
That program does not refer to them per se as much as florists, AV suppliers, etc. When it comes to the leads, there is an understanding that a DMO should only be giving the leads to those properties that fit the specifications of the meeting planners. The opt out really comes once the group has made the decision to meet in your destination, once they have made the decision on the hotel and that piece of business becomes definite.

What is the status of the accreditation program?
We launched the program in January 2007 after beta testing six bureaus in late 2006. We now have 40 DMOs that have signed up with full intention to apply for accreditation this year. 93% of the DMAI members that were surveyed indicated that if an acceptable accreditation program was put in place they would apply and become accredited.

There is one other important program that is seeking to standardize the process of meetings - the Convention Industry Council’s APEX program, Accepted Practices Exchange (www.conventionindustry.org/#apex). APEX was put in place to help standardize the way that we do business and, I believe, it will go a long way in making our business far more seamless and easier to transact than ever before.