The Objective:

Raise Awareness of the economic significance of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center to the broader Central and South Texas Region and generate new leads for the convention sales team.

The Challenge:

January 2016 marked the completion of a $325 million expansion, the largest capital improvement project in the City of San Antonio's history increasing the footprint to 1.6 million square feet. Like most convention centers using public funding to expand, the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center faced the challenge of connecting the economic impact facts with visible bookings and destination marketing effectiveness.

"We all knew the Center is a productive lead generator for the destination and with the SwiftRFP technology powering our online presence we now have a way to measure while providing a better customer booking experience...the ConventionCalendar.com program has proven to be a cost-effective program to expand our destination marketing and sales efforts."

Scott Munson, General Manager, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center

The Results:

• Participation as a featured venue continues to highlight the economic significance of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center by showcasing the expanded center, economic impact facts, up-to-date event listings and availability.
• SwiftRFP technology provides customers a direct booking channel backed by convention sales professionals.
• Over the past 18 months, ConventionCalendar.com has delivered 79,688 visitors to the San Antonio profile. These visitors viewed over 142,000 pages of information resulting in 66 new booking prospects representing 13,000 potential room nights.

The Strategy

Not all planners recognize that the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center is located in San Antonio, Texas. To capture planners at the earliest stages of venue selection our strategy included eMail marketing and the development of destination specific addresses optimized to be easily found in major search engines. Both ConventionCalendar.com/SanAntonio and SanAntonioConventionCenter.org act as entry points and doorways providing critical site-selection information and linking directly to the official convention center website.

Why ConventionCalendar.com?

As a featured venue partner on ConventionCalendar.com, San Antonio and the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center are positioned in front of meeting planners utilizing the program at the earliest stages of planning. With access to a robust dashboard including real-time reporting and lead tracking, ConventionCalendar.com is perfectly suited to provide the collaborative convention sales and marketing solution that San Antonio and the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center needs.

"We are excited to be one of the launch partners and continue to support this innovative program."

Scott Munson, General Manager,
Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center