How attracting conventions to Macon pays off for taxpayers

Macon has become a destination for conventions: business, academic, religious and everything in between. With these conventions come floods of people, a local economic boost and savings for residents.

“Each taxpayer, each homeowner would have to pay $489 more if it weren’t for those dollars coming in from conventions. The county would have to charge each homeowner about $500 more per year. And that’s significant” Aaron Buzza, vice president of development and COO at Visit Macon said.

He said the impact of the convention is meaningful because of the many services convention organizers need.

“Through the conference planner and through paying registration. They’re paying for the space rental. They’re paying for catering. They’re paying for audio visual. They’re paying for the staff to do the setup of tables and chairs and things like that,” Buzza said.

There is also an indirect impact on the local economy from the conference attendees.

“If you go to a convention, you might need to stop and get gas. They might go and have a drink off-site or they might go and have dinner off-site. So those are dollars that are coming into the local economy, both by the conference itself, spending those dollars to bring everybody here” Buzza said.

Campaigning for conventions

For the past 30 years, Visit Macon has been conducting a concerted campaign to attract conventions, in addition to other forms of tourism.

“For my specific department, the convention sales department, our efforts are to bring business travelers here to conduct their meetings and conventions, and to produce hotel room nights because we’re funded by the ‘hotel motel tax,’” said Trish Whitley, the director of sales and services at Visit Macon.

Whitley is referring to the hotel and motel excise tax, a part of the Macon-Bibb tax code that calls for 8% of the charge for a hotel, motel, campsite or other form of rental logging to be paid as a tax. A portion of funds raised through this tax go toward Visit Macon, which is designated as the official destination marketing organization of Macon-Bibb County, according to the Macon-Bibb County code of ordinances.

Whitley and her department have to work to convince organizations to hold their meetings and conventions in Macon, as opposed to larger cities, such as Atlanta.

“There’s a few things that we tout as good reasons to come to Macon for your business travel, or to have conventions here. We are very conveniently located, And then plus, Macon is just a unique space. It has unique spaces for meetings,” Whitley said.

These options for unique meeting spaces range from the capitol theater to the city auditorium, as well as the more standard experience of the convention center. The city also boasts entertainment options outside of the conference hours, with a large selection of museums, historical sites, art spaces and unique restaurants, Whitley said.

“So if you want something a little out of the box, that’s a good reason to come to Macon” she said.

Convention experience

The types of organizations that choose Macon as their destination for conventions, meetings and other events include sports, religious, corporate and government institutions.

The Southeastern American Society for 18th Century Studies held its annual convention at the Edgar H. Wilson Convention Center in February.

Saralyn Desmet, a professor of French and Spanish at Wesleyan College, was one of the organizers. She said Wesleyan, Middle Georgia College and Georgia College, decided more than a year ago to hold the convention in Macon for the first time.

“We were looking for things for people to do, you know, because a lot of people who go to these conferences every year; when they go, they want to see local sites,” Desmet said.

The organizers contacted Visit Macon for suggestions for tourists.

“We worked with Visit Macon and they have been very helpful in helping us figure out what to do,” Desmet said.

Despite the many things there are to do, there were certain restrictions on what choices Desmet and her organization had when planning for a convention in Macon.

“The one limitation for conferences and Macon is that the Marriott and convention center is really the only place that you can have a convention with a hotel together. There’s no other hotel that has the meeting space that we need, and we’re not a huge conference. We were planning for about 100 people,” Desmet said.

She said she would love to have the convention in Macon again and it would be great to have other hotel options with convention space that is within walking distance to downtown.