ST. LOUIS — The trouble at the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Convention and Visitors Commission runs deeper than cost overruns and construction delays on the downtown convention center expansion: The commission has been having trouble selling ºüÀêÊÓƵ, too.
While other cities have bounced back from pandemic losses, hotel room bookings secured by the commission here, a key measure of the sales team’s performance, crashed last year, falling almost 45% below pre-pandemic figures.
ºüÀêÊÓƵ hoteliers who count on the convention business are concerned. They had hoped the ongoing $250 million expansion of the America’s Center would increase sales.
“So the drop in convention bookings is very alarming for ºüÀêÊÓƵ Area Hotel Association members,†the association’s executive committee said in a statement on Monday to the Post-Dispatch. “We hope that any steps the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Convention & Visitors Commission takes to change course regarding this matter are done so in a manner that is immediate and beneficial to ºüÀêÊÓƵ and its hospitality industry.â€
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The numbers give context to concerns shared in a meeting of the commission’s board last week. Board member and hotelier David Robert cited “an operational and sales problem†and trouble with staff morale as he broached the subject of replacing the commission’s embattled chief, Kitty Ratcliffe.
The sales statistics also raise further questions about the taxpayer-funded America’s Center expansion: It was supposed to help bring in new business. But it has been dogged by political infighting in the city and ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, ill-timed inflation during the pandemic, and a failure to follow through on assurances by Ratcliffe and others that the project could be done on time and on budget.
Board Chairman Steve O’Loughlin acknowledged in a statement Friday the drop in bookings, calling it the result of lingering effects of the pandemic on the market, the delays in the expansion project and the loss of salespeople in recent years. But he said things are moving in the right direction now.
“Our sales team is now at pre-pandemic staffing levels again and is energetically selling ºüÀêÊÓƵ City and County, and our new infrastructure and amenities,†O’Loughlin said.
Bookings for fiscal year 2024, which ends this month, are projected to reach 405,000, or about 78% of 2019.
And 2025, O’Loughlin said, “will be one of the best we’ve experienced in the last decade.â€
The commission has seen declines in bookings after major events before. Sales dropped 40% year over year in 2009 as a financial crisis rippled across the country. They slumped again in the two years after Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson and the civil unrest that followed.
But in each case, sales eventually rebounded to exceed or at least approach their previous marks.
The commission has yet to see anything like that in the wake of the pandemic, however. And that stands out among ºüÀêÊÓƵ’ competitors.
Columbus, Ohio, was down 6% from its pre-pandemic bookings in 2023. Minneapolis was up 4%. Indianapolis, one of the cities ºüÀêÊÓƵ officials most frequently compare themselves against, was within 5% of its 2019 numbers by 2022.
Denver, another rival that releases different statistics, said it booked 18 more conventions in 2023 than it did in 2019.
Gary Andreas, a hospitality industry analyst and principal with Chesterfield-based H&H Consulting, said one reason is almost certainly the trouble with the America’s Center expansion.
The first phase of construction work is set to finish almost a year later than planned. And without more money incoming, officials have indefinitely postponed some work, such as the construction of the new ballroom.
Other cities can use that to get convention planners to pick them instead, Andreas said. Meanwhile, Denver, Indianapolis and Nashville, Tennessee, have poured money into their own expansions.
“So they have those competitive advantages,†he said. “And ºüÀêÊÓƵ just appears to the world like it’s fumbling the football.â€
Amy Gill, whose firm owns Hotel ºüÀêÊÓƵ on Olive Street downtown, said the problem hurts everyone.
The visitors commission, she said, needs to look over its sales staff and make sure it has the right people in place.
“We need 2025, 2026, 2027 to be killer years,†she said, “but if you don’t have good salespeople, they’re not going to be.â€
O’Loughlin, whose firm owns the Union Station hotel and the Hilton near Busch Stadium, was more optimistic: His hotels made up the drop in convention center sales by booking smaller groups this year.
And he said 2025 is looking like the best year ever.