What is a Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB)?
A Convention and Visitors Bureau is a not-for-profit organization charged with representing a specific destination and enhancing the long-term development of communities through a travel and tourism strategy. A Convention and Visitors Bureau is usually a membership-based organization, bringing together businesses that rely on tourism and meetings for revenue.
For visitors, a CVB is like a key to the city. As a balanced resource, a CVB can serve as a broker or an official point of contact for convention and meeting planners, tour operators and visitors. CVB staff can assist planners with meeting preparation and encourage business travelers and visitors alike to visit local historic, cultural and recreational sites.
Why is a CVB valuable to a visitor, a business traveler or a meeting planner?
CVBs offer impartial information about a destination's services and facilities.
CVBs save visitors time and energy as they are a "one-stop shop" for local tourism interests.
CVBs can provide a full-range of information about a destination.
CVBs charge nothing for services.
If CVBs don't charge for their services, how do they make money?
Convention and Visitors Bureaus do not charge clients (the visitor, the business traveler or the meeting planner) for services rendered. Instead, like many CVBs, the Greater Portland CVB is funded through membership dues.
Why are meetings and tourism important?
Travel and tourism enhances the quality of life for a local community by providing jobs, increasing tax dollars for improvement of services and infrastructure and attracting facilities like restaurants, shops, festivals, and cultural and sporting venues that cater to both visitors and local residents.
Tourism is of the world's largest service export and largest employer. In the United States, for example, travel and tourism is the third biggest retail sales sector. The industry contributes more than $545 billion annually to the nation's economy and generates $94 billion in tax revenues (2001 figures). Indeed, travel and tourism is an economic engine and CVBs are the key drivers.
