The Destination Group Sales Division confirmed 78,394 total room nights in the month of May. This production includes the National School Boards Association’s 2026 Annual Meeting. This event will bring close to 24,000 room nights and over 7,000 attendees for April 2026. The team also confirmed the Society of Thoracic Surgeons’ 2024 Annual Meeting. This group will bring close to 5,000 attendees to our city in January 2024.

In June, we participated in the following customer events:

  • MPI World Education Congress (WEC) - MPI's World Education Congress is one of the premier events for meeting and event professionals. Through inspiring and innovative education, dynamic networking and countless business opportunities, our team had the opportunity to spend quality time with our industry partners and customers.
  • PCMA Education Foundation’s Partnership Summit – An annual customer event in which we spent time in various education sessions, team-building activities, and networking opportunities. We attended along with our Synchronicities partners.
  • Association Forum’s Forum Forward & Honors Gala – This is Association Forum’s annual meeting and awards gala. Attended by the “who’s who” of the Chicagoland meetings industry, this is a “must-attend” for our industry conducting business in this area.
  • Lamont & Associates Annual Meeting – We attended this 2nd year event to get to know our Lamont representatives and their customers better. Lamont & Associates, a newer third party meeting planning company, brings together their suppliers and customers to mingle together in various industry learning sessions.

The month of July is another busy month for the Destination Sales Team, in which we will participate in the following events:

  • Cvent Connect – Along with 5 area partners, we will be attending Cvent’s annual customer and vendor conference. There we will learn about industry trends, Cvent’s newest innovations, network with customers at various events, and participate in an appointment based trade show.
  • Smart Meetings Northeast – this is our 2nd Smart Meetings event for the year, this time concentrating on our Northeast clientele. This appointment based show will be located at the Roosevelt Hotel in NYC.
  • Destinational International’s Annual Convention – This annual event, located this year in St. Louis, brings together the world’s top DMO’s for education, information and best-practice exchange. We will be celebrating our very own Azari Jones as she is awarded a top 30 under 30 award!
  • Experient e4 – a first time event for Visit San Antonio, we will attend Experient’s top customer event. Located in Baltimore this year, we will look forward to networking with top representatives from Experient, as well as with their top customer base.

During the month of May, the Destination Experience Team provided support to 38 groups convening in San Antonio with a representation of 34,375 attendees accumulating to over 41,321 total room nights. The Destination Experience Managers coordinated and led 5 planning site visits during the month for groups who will meet in San Antonio between 2019 and 2021.

The Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) serves as a meeting forum to connect the entire wound care team (physicians, nurses, physical therapists, researchers, scientists, podiatrists, and dietitians) with the foremost experts in wound care to improve patient outcomes through education. The SAWC Spring/WHP 2019 Conference took place in San Antonio, May 7-11, 2019, during National Travel & Tourism Week. This happy coincidence allowed the Visit San Antonio team to create an amazing and memorable experience for the SAWC attendees. Members of the entire Visit San Antonio staff paraded through the aisles of the convention center wearing colorful sombreros while greeting and thanking attendees for visiting San Antonio in 2019. They also handed out delicious icy cold fruit paletas, served with a smile. The SAWC/WHP team and their attendees were surprised and delighted by this heartful display of hospitality!

Upcoming key groups meeting in San Antonio in July:

  • Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching
  • American Association of Physicists in Medicine
  • AVID Center
  • Texas Bandmasters, Choral Directors & Orchestra Directors
  • Retail Solutions Providers Association
  • Education Service Center Region 13

To see what other opportunities there are to partner with Visit San Antonio please go to our partners’ website (members.visitsanantonio.com).