Strategic Events
Power of Strategic Events
The CRVA believes in the power of recruiting and hosting strategic events that elevate destination awareness and produce economic impact. The national and international reach of these kinds of events generate more impressions than the CRVA or City of Charlotte could ever be capable of generating via traditional marketing and economic development avenues. Most importantly, these types of events keep Charlotte’s hospitality workers working.
Examples of Charlotte-hosted strategic events over the years encompass the Democratic National Convention (2012), CIAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament (2006 – 2019), PGA Championship (2017), Wells Fargo Championship (2003 – 2016; 2018 - 2021), international soccer matches, NBA All-Star Game (2019), Republican National Convention (2020), Presidents Cup (2022) and more.
Economic Development Catalysts
Beyond tourism, the CRVA is strongly committed to recruiting and executing high caliber events for economic development purposes as well. These events create valuable exposure among key business decision-makers and C-suite leaders, while also establishing direct opportunities for economic development agencies to deepen valuable connections with attendees.
Prominent tourism studies also point to the positive impacts of these events. Conducted by Oxford Economics, the study, “Destination Promotion: An Engine of Economic Development,” highlights how promoting a city for tourism can elevate its overall competitiveness on the economic development front. These include “building transportation networks, raising the destination profile, raising the quality of life and attracting strategic events.”
Economic Impact Defined
The CRVA uses a conservative and consistent approach to estimating economic impact for events in line with destinations worldwide. Economic impact takes into account direct spending the event generates by visitors and attendees (hotels, dining, transportation, etc. during their stay) plus the additional impact that occurs via the trickledown effects that benefit regional businesses and industries. These trickledown effects are: 1) induced impact such as hospitality employees spending their incomes from key events within the Charlotte market; and 2) indirect impact such as purchased goods and services in the Charlotte supply chain that stem from that event.
Surveys of event attendees help develop profiles of visitors for different event types. Direct spending of the out-of-town event attendees is input into the IMPLAN model, which is the world leader in providing economic impact data. The model traces the flow of visitor expenditures throughout the local economy and produces their effect on employment, wages and taxes.