Religious planners conference at DeVos Place will generate millions of dollars locally

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

The Grand Rapids/Kent County Convention and Visitors Bureau scored a major triple play when it landed the world’s largest religious planners’ conference for January of 2009.

Not only are 500 religious conference planners coming to Grand Rapids for the three-day Religious Conference Management Association’s (RCMA) annual meeting, another 800 people will be in town marketing their own cities to the RCMA board and conference attendees, and the number of new conferences booked after the event will bring a projected $15 to $20 million to Grand Rapids.

“The reason we want to host this conference is it attracts up to 500 potential future customers for conferences,” says Janet Korn, CVB spokesperson. “It lets them see the city and see how well we do a conference, and once you test drive the car, you’re more apt to buy it.”

The tendency is for people to attend conferences near where they live, and since many of the attendees will come from surrounding states, the CVB projects that those folks will see the advantages of booking their own conferences and annual meetings in Grand Rapids.

“The attendees of this conference represent over 3,000 religious meetings,” Korn says. “It’s an association of people who plan religious meetings for a particular church or faith.”

The RCMA always has its conference in winter, usually in warmer climes like San Antonio, a direct competitor for the 2009 conference. But Grand Rapids won out because the Skywalk connects all the downtown hotels to DeVos Place; no one will have to venture into the cold to move between their rooms and the conference center.

This month, the 15-member RCMA board will meet in Grand Rapids for two days to tour the city and choose a conference theme.

Source: Janet Korn, Grand Rapids/Kent County Convention and Visitors Bureau

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Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].