Convention and Visitor Bureaus in the USA: A Profile of Bureaus, Bureau Executives, and Budgets

Abstract

One of the major trends in North American tourism in the past 25 to 30 years has been the increasing emphasis on marketing cities and other local communities as tourism destinations. Convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs), an organizational concept which originated in the USA, have been the central force in the growing power and influence of local destination marketing organizations. Fueled mainly by the introduction of local hotel room taxes, several US CVBs now have tourism marketing budgets greater than their respective state governments and that of the US Travel and Tourism Administration. This article provides a comprehensive profile of the characteristics of CVBs, CVB funding, and CVB executives in the USA. It reports on the results of a nationwide survey of CVB executives.