Representatives of roughly 400 tour companies will start coming into town Friday. Over a five-day period, they are expected to contribute $3 million to the state's economy - staying at hotels, eating at restaurants, spending money on entertainment and gift-shop items.
But if most are pleased with their experiences here, prospects abound for a much bigger future return. After all, this year's roster of participating tour organizers represents companies from 14 nations.
"NTA tour companies are continually looking for new and exciting locations for their clients, as well as new ways to look at destinations, giving Salt Lake a prime opportunity to introduce itself and to show these companies why they should bring their customers to the area," said NTA spokeswoman Sara Morton.
Impressing these companies can have lucrative results, she added. "The impact of a motorcoach carrying 35 passengers staying overnight in a city is approximately $6,405."
To take advantage of this exposure, the Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau is emphasizing the variety of desirable and interesting sites reasonably close to Salt Lake.
"We are talking about using Salt Lake as a gateway to diversity," said Convention & Visitors Bureau President Scott Beck. "After flying into Salt Lake and spending a couple of days here, you can head north to Yellowstone [National Park] or south to the national parks in southern Utah. To get to both of those areas is unmatched anywhere else."
Salt Lake City has played host to this convention twice before - in 1989 and 2000.
Beck, who was general manager of the Marriott City Center before taking the Convention Bureau job, said his hotel reaped rewards from the 2000 convention, even though it didn't open until four months after the event.
"We had the most success with the Asian segment of the tour industry," he said. "In 2000, they had heard that the Olympics were coming here, so a large group of packaged travel tours came up out of the Los Angeles area. To come from L.A. to Salt Lake is cost effective. To this day, the hotel still sees benefits from that relationship."
This year's convention theme is "On Location in Utah," and local organizers have arranged daily activities geared around the fact that 700 movies and television shows have been filmed in Utah.
The city's successful staging of the 2002 Winter Olympics also will be highlighted. An "icebreaker" hospitality event on Nov. 4, the first full day of the convention, will take place at the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns, where speedskating events were staged during the Games.
And the state's most well-known affiliation - as headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - will be marked by a Mormon Tabernacle Choir performance at the final gala.
Because tour companies are vitally interested in receiving efficient hospitality services in their visits, Beck also intends to publicize three industry awards the Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau received in the past year.
It was inducted into the Meetings and Conventions Hall of Fame for receiving the industry's "Gold Service Award" for the 12th time, was named one of the top 25 CVBs in the country by Meeting News magazine and earned a similar honor from Corporate Meetings and Incentives magazine.
"While these awards are given to bureaus, the bureaus are a reflection of the destination . . . and of how great the hospitality industry is in Salt Lake," he said.
mikeg@sltrib.com
Members' perception of Salt Lake
After the National Tour Association staged its 2000 meeting at the Salt Palace Convention Center, members were asked how their perceptions of the Salt Lake area changed:
Total Respondents: 1,364
Positively - 71 percent
Negatively - 5 percent
Have Not Changed - 24 percent
Tour operators who had not arranged travel packages to Salt Lake were asked if they would now:
Total Respondents: 255
Yes - 94 percent
No - 6 percent
Source: National Tour Association
