Visit Albuquerque Highlights Achievements & Celebrates Success at 2019 Annual Meeting

During our Annual Meeting held at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Albuquerque on August 29, we celebrated one of the organization’s strongest years of marketing Albuquerque as a premier visitor, convention and sports destination. The organization announced an all-time high for local employment in the tourism industry, the most citywide meetings and events occurring in a single year, and a new record for lodgers’ tax collections, topping $14.4 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019—a 10.8% increase over FY18.

Visit Albuquerque welcomed nearly 300 tourism and business professionals to the event where we heard remarks from City of Albuquerque Chief Administrative Officer Sarita Nair, City Councilor Isaac Benton and Visit Albuquerque leadership.   

In addition to highlighting the successes of the past year, Visit Albuquerque also celebrated recent achievements and announced plans for the future. For a full recap on future plans and announcements at the event, please see the press release here. 

In addition, the program included recognizing Visit Albuquerque volunteers—a base of over 90 individuals who serve at the organization’s Visitor Information Centers, trade conferences and local events. Two long-standing volunteers were highlighted during the program: Pat Wittman for 19 years and Tom Grasser for 17 years of service.

The meeting closed with Tania Armenta, Visit Albuquerque President and CEO, thanking attendees and emphasizing the real impact the tourism industry has on Albuquerque, adding that none of these successes would be possible without the support of the community and the industry. “Our city is a premium and authentic destination, and Visit Albuquerque looks forward to an exciting and even stronger year ahead,” said Armenta.

Another Record-Breaking Year for Albuquerque Tourism

At the Annual Meeting on August 29, we were proud to highlight the overall success of the travel and tourism industry in Albuquerque, as well as its role as a leading contributor to the city’s economy. As one of the largest private industries in the city, the tourism industry in Albuquerque:

• Generates more than $2 billion annually.
• Employs over 44,000 people in Albuquerque, the highest employment ever for the leisure and hospitality industry.
• Brings approximately 6.2 million visitors to the city each year, which generates about $69 million in local taxes.

Increases were reported in overall hotel performance, with hotel occupancy up 5.8% and average daily rate up 5.9% calendar year-to-date through June 2019, according to STR (formerly known as Smith Travel Research). The Albuquerque International Sunport welcomed over 5.4 million visitors in FY19, a 2.9% increase over FY18.

Visit Albuquerque also saw successes through dedicated marketing efforts over the past fiscal year. The organization’s PR team generated over 1,220 positive articles about the city with the potential to reach more than 1.7 billion people and an estimated publicity value of over $3.7 million. Visit ABQ’s digital and social media efforts continue to pay off with an increased Instagram following of 55% and a 16.3% increase in web traffic to VisitABQ.org. Visit Albuquerque’s advertising campaigns generated nearly 85 million impressions across seven different channels.

Additional key visitor data for FY19 included successes in bookings and service:

• Meetings, conventions and sporting events occurring in FY19 generated 237,323 room nights, up 26.1% over FY18.
• Overall business occurring also resulted in record-breaking attendance at 335,526 attendees.
• The organization hosted a record number of citywide events occurring in FY19 at 58, representing 151,961 room nights and 209,450 attendees—the highest number of attendees ever recorded for these events.
• More citywides were booked in FY19 than ever before (some occurring in FY19 as well as future years), and overall FY19 bookings represent $91.6 million in future estimated direct spend.
• Visit Albuquerque’s sales team hosted 81 meeting planner site visits and 29 prospective group tour clients.
• Meeting planners rated Visit Albuquerque’s overall service 4.72 on a 5-point scale.
• With the opening of the new Visitor Information Center at the Sunport, the organization welcomed 14,368 visitors in June 2019—more than double the visitors welcomed in June 2018.

Visit Albuquerque Welcomes New Board Leadership at Annual Meeting

The Annual Meeting program also included election of new Board leadership and members. Cainan Harris, general manager of Hyatt Regency Albuquerque, was named Board Chair for FY20 and Jim Gay, regional director of New Mexico Sports & Wellness; Steve Grant, owner of the Downtown Historic Bed & Breakfast; and Damen Kompanowski, general manager of Sheraton Albuquerque Uptown, were all elected to a second term. 

We give great thanks to Jim Gay for the past year of leadership as the Board Chair. As we bid farewell to Jim, we were also excited to see him pass the gavel on to Cainan Harris, our Board Chair for FY20. We are all eager to work with Cainan in his new role this year.

Lessons Learned from Listening to Meeting Planners Talk About Albuquerque

Destination Analysts, a market research firm, has conducted annual research surveys of meeting planners since 2017, with 500 surveys completed in May 2019. As a part of their 2019 research, Destination Analysts interviewed 12 meeting planners about their impressions of Albuquerque as a host city. These meeting planners’ knowledge of Albuquerque ranged from “never set foot there” to “I love it and recommend it to my clients.”

Visit Albuquerque has pulled together a list of three key lessons the Albuquerque meetings and conventions industry should take away from this recent research:

Lesson #1: Comps May Vary

• Albuquerque’s comp set from a holistic destination standpoint looks very different from our comp set in the mind of a meeting planner in a niche industry (or a meeting planner with little knowledge of our market).
• Cities named as comps for Albuquerque included Asheville, N.C.; Santa Barbara, Calif.; St. George, Utah; Lake Tahoe, Calif; Portland, Ore.; and Frisco, Texas, alongside some of the more expected responses. 
• In addition to the marketing opportunities presented by these extremely varied perceptions of our market, this was a good reminder that the way meeting planners segment destinations can vary significantly.

Lesson #2: Capitalize on Attendee Intrigue

• More than half of the meeting planners interviewed noted Albuquerque’s attractiveness to attendees as a strength.
• Attendance is the most critical success factor for association meeting planners, and the second most critical success factor for all meeting planners.
• The attractiveness of our destination to attendees was highlighted in 2019 when the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute, the Society of American Archaeology’s Annual Meeting, and the National Senior Games all broke their previous attendance records in Albuquerque. Highlighting such attendance successes will be important for us going forward.

Lesson #3: Let’s Talk About Airlift

• Five of the 12 interviewees mentioned airlift as a weakness for our destination. However, most of them made it clear that they were working off of assumptions instead of up-to-date information.
• While airlift can be an issue, the variety of non-stop options in and out of Albuquerque may come as a surprise to outsiders. Ultimately, the more effective we are at communicating those opinions, the less susceptible we’ll be to meeting planners’ limitation assumptions.

Kristin McGrath Leads Tourism Class in London with Destinations International

Kristin McGrath, Visit Albuquerque’s Vice President of Sales, Services & Sports, recently returned from London, England, where she had been invited by Destinations International to instruct a course during the European Cities Management Summer School. One of her sessions during the course covered the RFP process in the United States. Visit Albuquerque is honored to have had a member of our leadership be selected to instruct this course by Destinations International. We are proud to have such a highly regarded sales and thought leader in the industry representing Visit Albuquerque.

Visit Albuquerque Attends the Professional Fraternity Association Annual Convention

Misty Jester, Visit Albuquerque’s Senior National Sales Manager, represented Visit Albuquerque at the Professional Fraternity Association (PFA) Annual Convention this month in Alexandria, Va. PFA members include more than 30 fraternity and sorority organizations, all of whom plan meetings and events.

Visit Albuquerque Attends IMEX America

Visit Albuquerque exhibited at IMEX America in Las Vegas, Nev., September 10-12, 2019. Exhibiting at this event gave our sales team the opportunity to meet with thousands of qualified buyers from all industry sectors, at one of the largest meetings markets in the world. We shared our booth space with Tourism Santa Fe, and extend a big 'thank you' to the New Mexico Tourism Department for their generous marketing sponsorship. This partnership provided our booth with cohesive signage under the New Mexico True brand umbrella, elevating our presence at this important show.

Public Safety Measures Announced for 2019 Balloon Fiesta

Balloon Fiesta is increasing its public safety and security protocols this year.  Click here for specifics about the 2019 Public Safety Measures.
 
To help communicate the addition of metal detectors and expanded bag checks Balloon Fiesta has created a helpful flyer that can be displayed for visitors and guests.

Download the flyer here. 
 

NMTD Is Hiring

The New Mexico Tourism Department is hiring a Commerce Analyst. The purpose of this position is to monitor and report economic trends specific to New Mexico's tourism industry and assist in conducting research on tourism business development, collecting and analyzing data on emerging tourism industry opportunities, and develop forecasts to assist the tourism industry in advocating for business development. 

To learn more and/or apply for this job click here.