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Black Meetings & Tourism December 2009: www.blackmeetingsandtourism.com 51 It's a pretty safe bet that most of you reading this article are suffering from a severe case of recession fatigue. We've all grown rather weary of all this recession talk and I for one am tired of writ- ing about it. Well, this fourth edition of Black Meetings and Tourism's annual report on the largest African-American conventions seems to suggest that despite all the doom and gloom pro- nouncements, African-American attendance appears to be bucking the trend. While individual events suffered some- what others exploded. The first entry in our top 25, the National Baptist Congress of Christian Education attracted 55,000 to Detroit. Collectively, attendance at most African-American events held steady as compared to 2008 and some actually experi- enced a slight increase such as the NAACP's 100th Anniversary gathering held in New York City. A few African-American events lost attendees this year. Was that decline of major significance going forward or a minor blip on the radar? It's a little too early to tell what 2010 will bring, but one thing is certain, if this jobless recovery con- tinues, events across the board will suffer a decline in atten- dance. Are African-American conventions forcing suppliers to do more with less because of reduced budgets? Absolutely! Increasing numbers of groups have turned to what many con- sidered second-tier markets to offset cost and keep their attendance up. Places like St. Louis, Baltimore, Jacksonville, Columbia, SC, Cincinnati, Kansas City, MO and Nashville are prominent players in this evolving marketplace along with our first ever entry from north of the border. Other large suppliers are forced to compete at reduced prices. As far as destinations are concerned, places like Las Vegas have experienced a double-digit decrease in meetings traffic over the first part of 2009. According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority meetings are down almost 22 percent over the first six months of 2009 with attendance off 27.5 percent. Las Vegas is not alone. Orlando and other hotspots have also experienced a slight decrease in meetings and conventions, yet both destinations continue to be the pre- miere sites for meetings and conventions. They are quickly adjusting to the changing market dynamics. Each year we attempt to make this column more relevant to our readers by adding detailed information. Our intent is to have our readers hold on to this issue and use as a resource. If you have any suggestions to improve this article for next year, we invite you to contact Black Meetings and Tourism and share those thoughts. As you might imagine gathering these figures required weeks of painstaking research and a constant flow of phones and emails for clarification. All of the attendance figures and room nights were obtained from convention and visitor's bureaus in the respective host cities. We made a concerted effort to determine the value of conventions – comparing apples to apples if you will, but found that next to impossible. Some cities use economic impact others report direct spend- ing. To compare one city to the next requires considering vari- ables outside this writer's expertise. Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI) has a direct spending calculator available to its members that requires the input of data to make the appropriate determi- nations. The calculator uses things like Metropolitan Statistical Area, type of event, industry category, attendee scope and more. If you want a simple calculation for direct spending multi- ply room nights by $290 or attendance by $1,036. Both figures were supplied by DMAI, but these are based on calendar year 2005. Keep in mind these are rough figures. If you require something more formal and you don't have a mecha- nism in place contact DMAI. Any report of economic impact or direct spending was left to the CVB and where it's "Not Reported" we've chosen to leave it "Not Reported." Here is our disclaimer. The financial figures obtained from the CVBs are all over the map, so do your own research. Sidebars at the end of this article highlight those special gatherings held annually in the same destinations with sizable attendance, such as the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) or the Essence Festival. Essence attracted over 400,000 peo- BY MICHAEL BENNETT