The following overview is designed to provide you with a quick, simple way to understand the business activities of the Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau (LCVB). This information should assist you in understanding in greater detail the information you have requested.

Destination Marketing Organization – an entity or company, which is promoting a tourist destination, in order to increase the amount of visitors to this destination. They promote the long-term development and marketing of a destination, focusing on convention sales, tourism marketing and services. (Source: Wikipedia)
 

Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau (LCVB)

The LCVB is a destination marketing organization, and can also be referred as Louisville and Jefferson County’s tourism economic development agency. Our efforts also impact Southern Indiana and Kentucky Counties surrounding Jefferson County. Our client base is the total visitor population. This includes leisure tourists (individual and group), convention delegates, meeting planners business travelers and press. Our staff works to both attract visitors to the city and service their needs while in town. The LCVB operates with three primary objectives: sales, marketing and services. Just about everything we touch involves a sales initiative, marketing the destination or servicing a customer while they are here in Louisville or preparing to visit the city.

Accreditation

We are pleased to report that the LCVB was one of the first five (5) convention and visitors bureaus in the world to receive its accreditation from the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program in its inaugural beta testing pilot program. There are 88 standards in 16 categories that must be met in order to pass the accreditation evaluation process ensuring destination marketing best practices. Today there are 115 Bureaus that have received their accreditation worldwide.

Return on Investment (ROI)

As noted above the LCVB has three primary objectives: sales, marketing, and services. We work hard to ensure that we maximize the ROI for each objective. That includes hotels, restaurants, convention centers, retail, attraction ticket sales, transportation, etc. The most recent Longwood’s Travel Research study reported that tourism has a $1.7 billion direct economic impact on Jefferson County. For travel writers whose ROI isn’t as easily quantified, our objective is for them to see and experience the best of what Louisville has to offer to inspire detail-rich coverage of the destination. If we are successful with our hosting of travel writers then their story about Louisville gets placed in major publications, newspapers and sometimes on travel television shows reaching millions of potential future visitors.

Hotel Bed Tax

The majority of LCVB funding comes from 4.5% of the hotel bed tax which is assessed on hotel rooms for out of town visitors. An additional 2% of the hotel bed tax is dedicated to servicing the bond debt of the Kentucky International Convention Center. The LCVB issued the bonds in 2002 and is obligated to cover any shortfall with the funds collected from the existing 4.5% should the 2% dedicated bed tax be insufficient to cover debt servicing requirements. Also, the Kentucky Department of Travel receives 1% for statewide marketing and the Kentucky Center for the Arts receives 1% to help offset its operational expenses. The total bed tax for Jefferson County is 8.5%. State sales tax is 6%. The combined tax on a hotel room is 15.01% which includes a.51% incremental increase of sales tax on transient room tax (6% x 8.5%).

View hotel bed tax chart

Annual Budget (process)

The LCVB’s fiscal operating budget is prepared annually following this process:
1. January – Each department prepares their individual budget based on expected activities for the upcoming fiscal year
2. February – The budget is reviewed by senior management
3. February/March – The LCVB Finance Committee reviews the annual budget in a series of meetings with senior staff
4. March – The budget is sent to the entire Commission for further review
5. March – The budget is formally presented to the entire Commission at our monthly Commission meeting for their review/discussion and approval
6. April – The approved budget is submitted to the Mayor’s office for review. In late April the senior management team presents the LCVB’s budget to Metro Council’s Finance Committee
7. June – The budget is approved by Metro Council
8. July – The new fiscal year budget goes into effect

View requested budgets

Salary Guidelines

The LCVB utilizes the Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI) salary and compensation survey as a guideline to ensure salary and compensation for our employees is consistent with the industry. Salaries for most LCVB employees are below the 2008 median salary as stated in the DMAI compensation survey for the same position in similar size Bureaus nationwide.

Staff Salaries

The LCVB generally follows the guidelines the city of Louisville and state of Kentucky implement each year as it pertains to cost of living salary adjustments. In FY-2009/2010 the LCVB did not offer any pay raises to its employees. In FY-2010/2011 the Commission approved a 2% cost of living pay raise which is consistent with that given to Metro Louisville employees. President& CEO Jim Wood will not receive the 2% pay raise in FY-2010/2011.

See spreadsheet from Chris Kipper

Staff Bonuses

Bonuses are based on reaching predetermined goals and objectives each year. The primary objective is reaching the hotel room night goal. The secondary category is the individual accomplishments towards Personal Performance Objectives (PPO). The PPO’s are all individually weighted based on their level of importance. The LCVB contracts with a 3rd party to independently audit its sales booking results annually.

See spreadsheet from Chris Kipper

Travel

The majority of all LCVB related travel is published in our annual destination marketing plan in advance so that other business partners can join us in attending a trade show, a sales mission or other business related activities of the LCVB. The vast majority of LCVB travel is domestic (including Canada and the Caribbean). Any overseas travel must be pre-approved by the LCVB President. Due to the tightening of the economy, the LCVB over the past two years has maintained a policy of very limited overseas travel.

View travel details

Travel Expenses

The LCVB staff adheres to the LCVB travel policy as outlined in the Employee Manual. We recognize the importance of travel in order sell and market the city and to meet the expectations of our clients while remaining in compliance with the LCVB travel policy.

Personal Expenses

All personal expenses are the responsibility of the LCVB employee.  In the event there is a personal charge (e.g. in-room movie) charged on a LCVB credit card that expense must be reimbursed immediately upon submission of the expense report without exception.

Travel Expense Payment

The LCVB has a separate bank account with BB&T for all funds collected through private sources (e.g. advertising, membership dues, etc.) All entertainment and travel expenses are paid out of this account using private dollars. Since 2007 no hotel bed tax dollars have been used to pay for any LCVB travel or entertainment.

View requested expense reports

Client Entertaining – Kentucky Derby

The LCVB will use special events such as the Kentucky Derby to entertain top clients as these events often showcase the best our city has to offer. Although we receive some complimentary accommodations, high demand for hotels and restaurants during these events may cause travel and entertainment charges for clients to exceed those at other times during the year.

Annual Destination Marketing Plan

Goals and Objectives – you will notice in our annual destination marketing plan that the LCVB has very specific numeric measurable goals and objectives for each department. The progress toward those goals and objectives is reported to our Board of Commissioners at our monthly Commission meeting.
Travel – also included in our annual destination marketing plan is a detailed listing of our staff travel by department. Each table includes the event, location and date of the event. As stated earlier we view Canada and the Caribbean as domestic destinations and as such part of our accepted travel destinations.

Bourbon Country

You will note many bourbon related expenses and marketing initiatives. Since the opening of our Visitor Information Center in February 2007, we have been working to position Louisville as the Gateway to Bourbon Country. This approach has been very instrumental in elevating not only the Louisville brand, but the state’s image nationally as well. The LCVB leadership has been the catalyst to bring together a seven county region, the private sector and the Kentucky Department of Travel to establish the Kentucky Bourbon Country Brand. Our vision is to establish and grow a brand similar to California’s successful marketing campaign, “Wine Country.”

View press coverage

www.LCVB.info web site

As a resource tool and for transparency, we place all of our research, Bureau Briefs, surveys, President’s Blog, economic trends, annual report, marketing plans, etc. on the LCVB.info web site. This information is made available to anyone 24/7.

Press Coverage

The highlights of Louisville’s press coverage as it relates to tourism themes are included for the past 24 months. PDF’s of noted articles are shared at the monthly Commission meetings and in our weekly Bureau Brief. Stories are also shared directly with area attractions, restaurants, and hotels that have received mentions. The LCVB Marketing/Communications Department works to aggregate all tourism-related press on the city regardless of having direct contact with the media outlet, however most of the comprehensive destination articles have been serviced by a member of the Marketing/Communications Department.

View press coverage
View all press releases

Bureau Brief

In August 2003 the LCVB began publishing a weekly e-newsletter called the Bureau Brief. The Bureau Brief communicates to all interested subscribers our staff and organizational activities for the upcoming week. This includes but is not limited to all sales, marketing and services initiatives with which the staff is involved. Anyone interested in the activities of the LCVB can be placed on the e-newsletter mailing list. There are currently 1,700 subscribers consisting primarily of hospitality industry partners.

Click Here to view newsletter archives (May 2007 - Present)

ROSE Awards

The Recognition of Service Excellence (ROSE) Awards honors the contributions of those who make their career in the hospitality industry. Several awards are included in this event, including:

The ROSE Awards, which are given to front-line employees in six categories: attractions, accommodations, restaurants, transportation, volunteer and behind-the-scenes. The Unity Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement in the promotion of diversity in the hospitality industry. The Dan Mangeot Memorial Award, which honors an individual who has made the most significant contribution to the advancement of tourism and has a history of supporting the hospitality industry throughout his/her professional lifetime. The Bureau Partner of the Year Award, which honors the most outstanding Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau partner and finally, the Ambassador Awards are given to local individuals who have significantly contributed to the Bureau's sales initiatives by helping to bring convention business to Louisville.

View past Rose Award Winners

Greater Louisville Sports Commission

The Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau (LCVB) plays a supporting role in the success of the Greater Louisville Sports Commission (GLSC), a component unit of the LCVB, by providing both cash funding and in-kind services to the organization. The LCVB provides the GLSC funding in the amount of $400,000 annually to support GLSC operations. In addition, the LCVB provides the GLSC with $50,000 for the Ironman and up to an additional $50,000 for bid fees associated with securing various sporting events for the local community. Also, the LCVB provides $48,160 in in-kind support to the GLSC annually. The total value of cash funding and in-kind services provided by the LCVB to the GLSC is $548,160.

Annual Goals vs. Actual

The LCVB tracks and reports to the Commission accomplishments to goals each month of the fiscal year.

View reports

Convention Delegate Surveys

In order for us to better understand our customers evolving needs we have conducted multiple convention delegate surveys. The results from these surveys have helped us shape our services and programming we offer.

View delegate surveys

Louisville CVB Web Site Return on Investment Study

In order for us to insure we are producing the right type of information on our www.gotolouisville.com web site, we hired Destination Analysts, Inc. to conduct an online survey of our web site to determine its influencing potential with the viewers logging on. The results are very positive as the LCVB's web site has a direct economic impact of $36.36M on our local economy.

View Destination Analysts, Inc.'s study

Past, Present & Future Industry Shows Hosted in Louisville

As part of our long-range strategy, the LCVB has taken an aggressive posture of investing its resources in attracting and hosting major convention and tourism industry conventions. These conventions bring thousands of decision-makers to our community over the past few years. More events are on the horizon and are in the 2010-2011 budget.

View hosted industry shows

Bureau Accomplishments & Awards

As stated in our open records request you would like us to share with you some of our accomplishments over the past two years. The following link will provide you with a breakdown of awards the LCVB has received over the past two years.

View Awards

Staff Involvement

LCVB's senior staff involvement in various committee's and organizations.

View Staff Involvement