Survey says

Meeting and convention planners who've run events in Reno and Sparks love the area, and they'd like to return.

The challenge for the Reno-Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority, new research finds, is that a lot of meeting planners don't have any experience with events in northern Nevada. Many of them, in fact, don't know much about the region at all.

That's the next hurdle to be cleared by Ellen Oppenheim, the president and chief executive officer of RSCVA, and her sales staff as they continue an aggressive campaign to woo convention business.

A survey of some 1,700 meeting planners nationwide commissioned by RSCVA and undertaken by Reno-based InfoSearch International found that 42 percent have conducted meetings in northern Nevada and would return.

Among those who haven't scheduled a convention or meeting in Reno, the lack of direct flights into Reno-Tahoe International Airport particularly from the East Coast and Midwest was commonly cited as a drawback. Other problems, they said, are cost issues and their perception of Reno as a gambling town whose hotels aren't geared to convention traffic.

The research, Oppenheim said in an interview a few days ago, will help RSCVA shape an advertising campaign to open doors for its meetings-and-convention sales force.

The agency shifted dollars around late this summer to boost its ad spending to $390,000 from the previously budgeted $150,000.

Once RSCVA salespeople get in front of meeting planners, a key objective is building first-hand awareness of attractions of northern Nevada.

"The first thing the salesperson has to do is to convince them to come out and see us," Oppenheim said.

That's important, she said, because meeting planners either make decisions about location themselves or prepare the short list of possibilities from which other executives pick convention sites.

But many of the planners who responded to the recent survey acknowledged they don't have up-to-date information about the region.

The research also supports RSCVA executives' belief that the agency's sales effort needs to address objections about air service into Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

"We have great service for a city our size," Oppenheim said, noting that Reno can be reached from just about anywhere in the nation with one-stop service.

RSCVA has reorganized its sales staff into geographic teams the previous structure was based on industry groups and the agency has added two positions in its sales staff.

The reason for the urgency, Oppenheim said, is simple: Conventions typically are scheduled at least a couple of years in advance, and some are scheduled as far as 11 years in the future. If RSCVA doesn't nail down convention business today, hotel rooms and convention facilities will be bare in coming years.

"This is a relationship business, and a long lead-time business," the RSCVA chief said.

Other findings in the research:

* Nearly half of the respondents had no exposure to the "America's Adventure Place" brand, and only 16 percent said it fits the area extremely well. That's not surprising, Oppenheim said, because the slogan has been used primarily in consumer marketing by RSCVA.

* Among planners who have scheduled a meeting in Reno, 41 percent made their first contact through a hotel sales staff. RSCVA accounted for 33 percent of the initial contacts.

* Meeting planners say that smoke levels in public facilities in northern Nevada are a big enough drawback that it might discourage them from scheduling conventions here.