Greater Bangor visitors bureau retools

BANGOR – Representatives of the Greater Bangor Convention and Visitors Bureau met with city officials this week to discuss the organization’s efforts to retool.

During a presentation before the City Council’s finance committee, CVB Executive Director Donna Fichtner said the group is gearing up to change the way it does business.

The Greater Bangor CVB was established in the 1980s to stimulate the regional economy by marketing the region as a destination for meetings and conventions, motor coach tours and, more recently, the cruise ship industry.

Among other things, the organization is gearing up to shift from a “membership” organization to one that collects fees for its services.

The CVB proposes to begin the transition by establishing a rate card for its services, despite concerns that this could adversely affect its ability to compete with its counterparts, the vast majority of which don’t charge for their services.

Most CVBs are funded by some dedicated tax mechanism, whether it be the municipal, county or state tax structures, Fichtner said. Lacking that support, the local organization depends on municipal subsidies and membership dues.

In related measures, the CVB has reduced its staff, and this spring will relocate from its Main Street site to the headquarters of the Eastern Maine Development Corp. at One Cumberland Place. The move to EMDC’s facilities will save almost $300 a month in overhead expenses.

The steps being taken are aimed at making the CVB leaner and more efficient, given the organization’s budgetary constraints.

The measures were prompted in large part by the findings of a CVB task force, which explored the group’s organizational viability during a series of meetings conducted during the latter part of last year.

After four meetings, during which the task force looked at the status quo, how CVBs elsewhere are funded and operate, and possible scenarios for the future, the task force concluded that:

. The Greater Bangor CVB plays a key role in the region’s overall economic development effort, especially when it comes to small businesses.

. The CVB is a bargain, bringing an estimated $7 million in business to the area on a budget of about $260,000, $107,000 of which is provided by the city of Bangor. Local CVB leaders believe a minimum budget of $500,000 is needed in order to be able to do an adequate job of marketing the region outside of Maine.

. Continued city funding is critical to the CVB’s continuation and transition. Ultimately, the CVB wants to be self-sustaining.

According to Fichtner, the CVB hopes to obtain funding for a market study that would provide baseline data to determine the markets Bangor can realistically expect to attract. The study would cost roughly $30,000 to $40,000.

The estimated $7 million the CVB currently attracts, which Fichtner noted was a conservative estimate, represents a dramatic drop from the $10 million to $25 million it brought in before the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

She said that the industry as a whole was not expected to fully recover until 2005.