Hawaii’s Meetings, Conventions and Incentives Market Heats Up

May 19, 2015

On the heels of its best financial year since opening in 1998 and its first year being managed by AEG Facilities, the Hawaii Convention Center (HCC) continues its positive momentum into 2015 by launching a series of new offerings and initiatives to meeting planners in an effort to boost bookings at Hawaii’s premier meetings venue.

“In the first year of running the Hawaii Convention Center, we took a hard look at all aspects of our business from operations to sales and marketing,” said Teri Orton, HCC general manager. “By focusing on reducing our operating expenses through energy-saving initiatives and working collaboratively with the Meet Hawaii team to align our sales and marketing efforts, we’ve been able to operate more efficiently overall. There’s more great work to be done and 2015 is off to a solid start.”

HCC’s new initiatives include:

  • The successful launch of a new partnership program with many local hotel brands that may not have the meeting space options for groups to normally consider using such properties. This allows hotel partners to maximize occupancy levels by hosting group room blocks at their hotel and utilizing HCC for the meeting space component, as needed.
  • AEG’s corporate leadership has extended invitations and hosted corporate meeting planners in other AEG venues and facilities in both Los Angeles and Australia, allowing new partners and decision-makers to become more familiar with HCC.
  • Initiated a lead exchange program with the AEG Facilities team in Australia and Kuala Lumpur, which resulted in several leads and one site visit thus far. This program will be expanding in 2015.

HCC’s performance highlights in 2014:

  • Reduced operating expenses by more than $1.1 million enabling HCC to perform better than budgeted and achieving its best-ever financial year in the center’s 16-year history. AEG is carefully considering new revenue streams in addition to finding new business to increase revenues and economic impact, to include:
    — Sales Strategy to book more corporate business through AEG’s network of corporate partners
    — Developing new events (Hawaiian music and dance)
    — Advertising and sponsorship sales opportunities
  • HCC hosted 182 total events surpassing its targeted goal of 150 for the year welcoming 320,680 attendees, 30 percent more than its goal of 246,260.
  • Attendees spent more than $501 million during their visits that included a HCC component within the program generating more than $48 million in tax revenue to the state.

“The first year of management of the Hawaii Convention Center by AEG Facilities generated some positive results both in the Convention Centers bottom line performance and in room night generation,” said Brian Lynx, vice president of meetings, conventions, and incentives for the Hawaii Tourism Authority. “With a full sales team now in place, under the Meet Hawaii’s HTA umbrella, we are anticipating more innovative strategies continuing to unfold and existing initiatives to gain further traction in the upcoming year.”

A broader look at Hawaii’s meetings, conventions and incentives market shows Meet Hawaii, a collaboration between the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau and Hawaii Convention Center, continues to build up momentum as it works towards its annual goal of 383,250 definite room nights in 2015.

www.meethawaii.com

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