The Destination Group Sales Division confirmed 60,409 total room nights in the month of April. This production includes OneStream Software’s SPLASH User Conference for May 2022. This event will bring close to 8,000 room nights and over 3,500 attendees. The team also confirmed Sport Clips for their 2025 Annual Meeting. This is a repeat group for San Antonio and will bring close to 5,500 attendees to our city in May 2025.

In May, we participated in the following customer events:

  • IAEE Women’s Leadership Forum - IAEE’s Women’s Leadership Forum was designed to focus on topics that are unique to women in the exhibitions and events industry.
  • DC Sales Mission – Our Annual DC Sales Mission took place the first week of May. We had group sales calls and several customer lunch and dinner presentations. 24 of our area partners joined us for this year’s mission!
  • PCMA Visionary Awards - The PCMA Foundation Visionary Awards honored the exceptional stars in the business events industry. More than 1,000 revelers attended this premier industry black-tie recognition event from the red carpet reception to the awards show and after party.
  • Connect NYC – This appointment based event was a first time for Visit San Antonio. There we participated in educational opportunities and conducted pre-arranged customer appointments.
  • HelmsBriscoe’s Annual Business Conference (ABC) – This annual event enabled our staff to spend several days interacting with this third party business company, learning of their upcoming strategies as well as promoting our destination to their planners.

The month of June is another busy month for the Destination Sales Team, in which we will participate in the following 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 will have 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 spend time in various education sessions, team-building activities, and networking opportunities. We are attending 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 will be attending 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.

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

During the month of April, the Destination Experience Team provided support to 32 groups convening in San Antonio with a representation of 18,845 attendees accumulating to over 39,776 total room nights. The Destination Experience Managers coordinated and led 9 planning site visits during the month for groups who will meet in San Antonio between 2019 and 2020.

In April, the Destination Experience Team traveled to promote San Antonio at the prior year meeting for the following two groups:

  • Brewers Association – Craft Brewers Conference and BrewExpo America – held in Denver, CO, April 9-13, 2019 | Definite for San Antonio April 19-22, 2020 | 4,000 Peak | 11,000 Attendance
  • Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) – held in Anaheim, CA, April 11-14, 2019 | Definite for San Antonio April 28 – May 2, 2020 | 2,700 Peak | 6,000 Attendance

Upcoming key groups meeting in San Antonio in June:

  • United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation
  • Signature Equipovision
  • Associated Professional Sleep Societies
  • Texas Association of School Boards
  • National Fire Protection Association
  • Future Business Leaders of America – Phi Beta Lambda
  • US Customs and Border Protection
  • 2019 Spurs Nationals Basketball Tournament

Creative Spaces – Meeting Outdoors in San Antonio:

While Collaborate convened in San Antonio last month, meeting attendees were treated to a new experiential learning environment. Although they utilized space in the convention center they also set out to attain a new health and wellness initiative to expand outdoors and offer attendees a change of scenery for some specialized sessions. Per James Hobbs, Sr. Dir. of Global Programs for Meeting Expectations, during a creative internal ideation session a member of the team came up with this fun idea and it was perfectly suited for the Alamo City. Educational sessions, “Sponsor Talks,” and even a few Board of Director sessions were hosted on Go Rio barges; each with a 40-minute duration in length. In the spirit of refreshing meeting spaces, they also held a few meetings on the Grand Hyatt 5th floor pool deck with the San Antonio skyline as a back drop. Collaborate was pleased with the result and said the special classroom offerings was well received by attendees and suggested it be put in to our meetings tool box for future groups.