Spokane Puts On Sales Blitz Local Groups Will Make Push To Bring In More Conventions

If you belong to a professional or service organization, brace yourself.

You may be asked to help bring your group’s convention to Spokane.

Members of the Hotel-Motel Association and the Convention and Visitors Bureau are deploying throughout Spokane to launch a “sales blitz” effort to bring new convention business to Spokane.

The blitz was concocted by Convention and Visitors Bureau President Hartly Kruger as a way to boost flagging hotel occupancy rates.

“It goes back to a discussion we had with the Hotel-Motel Association in February, Kruger said. “How can we find some new, short-term business to fill hotel rooms that are vacant?”

The groups will call on 300 residents with ties to national or regional groups to get those people to make a call to their group headquarters and ask if they would consider coming to Spokane.

The CVB will then make a proposal or prepare a bid.

“A lot of people haven’t thought about bringing something back to Spokane,” said Denny Fitzpatrick, general manager of the DoubleTree-City Center. “This, hopefully, will knock down barriers in people’s minds.”

The goal is to get commitments for 5,000 room nights within 30 days, and eventually add 25,000 room nights. That could inject $25 million into Spokane’s economy, Kruger said.

Spokane occupancy rates are about 60 percent. The national average is about 70 percent.

The slump in occupancy rates led to some hard feelings between the hotel industry and the CVB, although Kruger said any rift has been healed.

The blitz “isn’t a fence mending thing at all,” he said. “There aren’t any fences that need to be mended.”

While Kruger sees expanding the current convention center as the long-term solution, the sales blitz could help in the next year.

“We want to identify short-term business, find people who can help us in the long term and possibly find business that we can have if we expand our building,” Kruger said.