DCVB's First 15 Years
In the mid 1980s, the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau (DCVB) was chartered by the State General Assembly as a provision to granting Durham permission to levy a local option tax on visitors staying overnight in commercial lodging facilities. Visitor bureau officials and state legislators had worked with visitor-related businesses to pioneer the room occupancy and tourism development tax just a few years prior to this.
It wasn't until 1989 that the City Council with then-Mayor Wib Gulley and the Board of County Commissioners, then chaired by Bill Bell, established and appointed the DCVB Board of Directors, now designated by the state as a local Tourism Development Authority (TDA).
Appointed as the first seven-member Board of Directors were Gretchen Cooley, the late H.C. Cranford Jr., Anne Gregory, the late Rick Kaspar, Bob Poole, Barbara Ryan, and Carol Vilas. The Board met 15 times over the next five months to work out organizational details and, in May, retained Reyn Bowman as President and Chief Executive Officer for official start-up in June 1989.
DCVB rapidly mounted Durham's first aggressive, coordinated marketing outreach to draw meetings and conventions, business and leisure visitors, film productions, group tours, and major sports events and to stimulate as much taxable spending as possible. Communities the size of Durham already had a 10- to 20-year head start, and Durham was missing out on its share of visitor spending and tax revenue.
Total visitation to Durham has more than doubled in DCVB's first 15 years ”from 2.3 million in 1990 (the first year visitation to Durham was tracked) to five million in 2003", with a peak of 5.5 million before the recession and events of September 11, 2001. More importantly, Durham visitors now generate more than $26 million in tax revenue for local government alone.
DCVB's resident stakeholders now rate visitor promotion and marketing a high priority for the community by more than 20 to 1 or nearly 90% up from 66% in 1993. Civic and business leaders rate DCVB effectiveness a median of 8 on a scale of 1 to 10, or significantly exceeding standards, a diagnostic by Performance Management Inc. rates Durham in the 90th-percentile for similar organizations. The Bureau also has received several "best practice" recognitions.
As DCVB completes its 15th year, the good news is that Durham has achieved what it has with half the resources recommended in guidelines by the N.C. House of Representatives, Finance Committee, and endorsed by the N.C. Travel & Tourism Coalition. More good news is that, by re-formulating use of the special tax so that more is invested in marketing, the community has the potential to reap 30-40% more in annual taxable spending from visitors before even reaching fair market share.
Last updated 11/24/2004
