Tapping into Tourism: How Small Businesses Can Benefit from CVBs - The Source Webinar Wednesday

welcome welcome everyone thank you for joining us as we um begin the webinar Wednesday for the Cook County small business source going to give you all a few minutes for everyone to get into the room we thank you all again for joining us all right looks like we have a good number of people here I thank you all again for joining us welcome to U this month's webinar Wednesday for the Cook County small business source my name is Dominique gamble I am the senior program manager for this small business program for Cook County and we um again we appreciate you all this month we have Miss Gina Speckman for the tourism division of our tourism uh alive program with the Cook County small business source who has come to speak with our small businesses and inform us on uh opportunities available to small businesses what that uh Bureau looks like what opportunities and uh workings that they have I'm interested in learning I am new to this um division as well so I know I've already spoke with her she has some great information for you all she has two other speakers with her and um we are really excited and we thank you all for joining us um but before I pass it off to Gina I am going to give you just a little background on the source and who we are um and what we do so the Cook County small business source uh was actually created in in 2020 this was a program that was developed out of what we call Ara dollars for small businesses in Cook County um through Co when we saw you know the nation go down we saw the small businesses were our driving force to the economy Cook County jumped in and they wanted to do everything that we could to make sure that we were able to keep our small business going um at first our tagline used to be you know we are here to keep our small businesses um Thrive well surviving and now we have now shifted our efforts to get our small business thriving and how we do that is we provide a number of opportunities and resources where we um give small businesses the opportunity to have one-on-one small business coaching with um our host of partners that work with us through the source we have a resource Library um that you can access for free again through our um in our website which is at the bottom Cook County small biz.org um we also have a host of events like this our webinar Wednesday Edition um we have inperson events we have webinars we have cohorts we have trainings that are all hosted um Through The Source by our um partner our partners that we work with and I'll talk about that a little bit um later um and they're all free we the Cook County small business source a One-Stop shop um for whatever a small business will need from you know the start of your business to Inception all the way until you know we have some businesses that are maybe looking to sell and we're here to assist you in that as well we do also provide access to Capital opportunities we had a grant that some of you might be familiar with um that closed earlier this year the um 20123 Source Grant and if we don't have a grant we do have opportunities that our partners have that we can maybe direct you to for some form of of capital assistance um and just a little bit quickly about our source grant for those who don't know in our source Grant we awarded $50 million to 3,000 small businesses um initially That was supposed to be a $40 million grant that we uh at the last I think the last two weeks uh president prle decided to add 10 more million so we were able to assist 500 more small businesses those uh Awards went to uh small businesses that had 20 or more employees and it was broken out into a grant of $10,000 and $20,000 so um we have a lot of impact stories that's coming with that as well um and as you can see here our impact of the source from 2020 to 2023 so far is we have assisted with $67 million in Grant distribution um for small businesses throughout Cook County um the numbers here have now grown we have assisted over 18,000 businesses through by way of events um and small business advising and we have assisted over 67,000 businesses have been reached so those touch points are through door knocking business advising um webinars events also um you know social media emails so type of things as well um and as you can see here our demographics is we work with 77% of those small businesses identified as um people of color 62% of those small businesses identify as being woman-owned businesses 94% of those are micro businesses with less than 10 employees so typically as you can see here we do work with businesses who are micro or um solo preneurs um so for the grant for us to have uh businesses with 20 or more employees that was really good for us we're seeing that businesses are growing or a larger scale that's tapping into the source which is kind of making us shift our efforts um in this third year so also so 35% of those businesses identify as black business owners 4% identify as Asian business owners 29% is Hispanic or Latina descent 15% identify as other 6% identify as two or other and uh 11% identify as white so we even have a greater distribution um of demographics that we've touched throughout our grant we are very excited um as you can see here we have host of Partners who assist us in this work which is why we're able to have our numbers be so great uh we have over 40 referral partners that assist us through ALC County with our reach um Gina is one of our wonderful referral Partners who assisted us with that Grant and getting a word out at the top we have what we call um our business advisor so if you hear us say um our bsos business service organizations um I'm not going to list them all but they are some of the greatest ones throughout Cook County some of them have worked in small business for over 30 50 60 years after um I've done my research I know some are really great Community Based resources um we have 36 square some of you have heard of allly Chicago Urban League uh greater Southwest Illinois spanic Chamber they are the driving force of the source uh they help us do the oneon-one business at fising the great thing that I like to talk to people about through the source is you can work with any one of these business support organizations if one of them does not have um whatever offering you need assistance with if you need to become certified as a minority business owner at 36 square they don't know how to do that if they don't do that they can you know transfer you to Women Business develop organization or minority supplier development or Illinois Hispanic chamber get that offering done for you and you can either stay with that organization or go back and work with the advisor you already had so as being a one-time entrepreneur I understand the need of you know things coming up at the last minute and then you have to say okay who do I talk to now where do I get this assistance and instead of you trying to figure that out or reinvent the wheel you can tap back into your U business advisor here at the source give them a call you know we have personal um relationships with our advisers a lot of our clients do and they can assist you get you what you need or send you to someone who has it so there's no reason for any business client to be dropped there no reason for none of your needs to be serviced and the great thing is it's all free so you know a lot of people don't believe that but these services are free to our small business clients is here in Cook County and I'm just going to put this up I'm not going to read all of this but these are just a few wonderful impact stories of the clients that we have helped here in the source you know it's easier to hear it but it's another thing to see it so we have Miss Pink Panini if some of you are in the small business area um she did receive the grant but she also work with the SDA uh she has pink Panini and just opened a new restaurant um called crabs and Cocktails um out in the Southland area go check her out um we have um Miss Freedom Lee State of Mind who is with burn shop she also um have went into the Berwin uh Boutique and I believe she now has her own um brick and mortar so we're doing great things and you have Miss P PG free who is a um a glutenfree trail mix who came in through Chicago minority supplier who I mean she's been advertised everywhere I believe she's in U Marianos um so these are just some of the businesses that we have helped this is literally just a spec of what we've done in the source and we are so excited and we hope that we can help you all next and of course I'm going to blast our some of our grant winners who are showing that they got a grant and we're happy cuz we made an impact um here with the source and we are just excited about the that we're doing this is why I wanted to take time to let you all know that we're here as a resource and a tool to help you and your small business so um if you would like to sign up for the source this is how you can do so I'm assuming most of you are already signed up cuz this is how you might have received the information um about this webinar but if not you can sign up with this QR code that you see here or you can go to cookcounty small biz.org to our website if you're not signed up for our newsletter right here at the bottom where it says sign up for news and updates you can go and sign up um for our newsletter so thank you all that is my presentation and I'm going to pass it over to Gina so she can let you all know the wonderful work that she is doing um next hold on so thank you Gina hi let me start sharing my screen um everyone can see me now my screen great um my name is Gina Speckman I'm executive director of Chicago's Northshore convention and visitors bureau I'm here today though not just talking about my Bureau but talking about convention and visitors bureaus in general and the work we do throughout um Cook County and just to give a bigger picture there's 38 convention and visitors bureaus that are certified by the state of Illinois and throughout the country there's hundreds and internationally thousands so so um for those of you unfamiliar with the work of convention and visitors bureaus as destination marketing organizations I'm going to be talking really overall about the kind of work we do so so what is a convention and visitors bureau and I always don't assume that people know who we are and what we do so I'm going to kind of explain that um again we're destination marketing organiz G ations and we have defined regions that we represent in Cook County there are six convention and visitors bureaus Chicago and then there's five Suburban Cook County Convention of visitors bureau we will detail who they are at the end um and we promote the um attract the businesses and leisure activities and business um offerings that visitors and business Travelers can use during a visit here um we connect Meeting Planners and event planners to our Hospitality related businesses and the types of businesses we work with I'll detail in the future it's not just hotels and restaurants and as I said before there's 38 um Convention of visitors bureaus that are certified by the state of Illinois now I know I have some Chambers on here so hi to all my Chamber of Commerce colleagues um a lot of times people call us a chamber you know they use Chambers and Convention and visitors bureaus terminology interchangeably and we are different we work really closely together but we are different so um just to quickly go over it chambers of comerce represent all sectors of the business community in whatever service area they represent um they also are the voice of small business to the local government and local government can be their City County or state they also provide educational opportunities to help small businesses operate better and to connect them to funding sources and they do great work in providing networking opportunities for small businesses including homebased businesses and we talked about that a lot of the people that even the source Grant works with are small single entrepreneurs many of them could be homebased Convention of visitors bureaus are a little different we only really represent the high Hospitality related businesses and quickly that's hotels restaurants attractions retailers and small businesses that Supply services to um meetings and events and we will detail I have a slide later on that shows you all the different kinds of businesses we do touch um we are basically sales and marketing um we try to bring business here because if we can bring more conferences and meetings and events to our areas then more people are employed to service those you know if a restaurant's busy it hires more shifts same with a hotel if it's busy they have more employees they need to operate so really what we see and what we do in the economic development picture is the more volume of people that we can sell in Market to come to our areas the more businesses are needed to service those people now this is like a little chart that was created not by me but one of my colleagues in Texas and it talks about where we fit in the role of Economic Development and first is it we always say it starts with a visit if you build a place where people want to visit then you have a place that people want to live if you have a place where people want to live then you have a then you have to have and provide them with employment and work and if you build a place where people want to work then you have a place where businesses and residents will invest and then it as as you can see it just if you if you build a place where businesses and residents will invest then you have a place where people will want to visit so we consider us as the first step it starts with a visit in the economic development Community Vitality wheel um our role of as convention and visitors buou and economic development is number one one out of every 10 jobs in Illinois is in the hospitality in dist Street and you can see here we carved out um Cook County but the first mission of what a convention and visitors bureau does is to bring meetings conventions conferences to Cook County that would otherwise choose to hold their event elsewhere and me and my colleagues we go to dozens and dozens of trade shows where people that are planning meetings attend to Source where they want to have those meetings and then we do all the things you do to sell your product we bring people here we show them what we have we offer them incentive to have meetings there and we help them we're also a free service in terms of how we work with meetings and conferences and events we help them and hold their hand in planning a meeting here and try to show them why this is a a preferred place to convene and again like I said The more meetings conferences events and business and Leisure visitors that come here the more Hospitality business business need to hire staff to service those meetings and events the second mission of what we do is to make sure that the businesses that are in the hospitality field get their fair fair share of the visitors dollars people see all the time events and meetings that fill our area and you know some of them are obvious like Nascar or the Democratic Convention or La laaloa starting this weekend when all these people come in to the city there's it's busy and a lot of people working but outside of those big name events there's hundreds of not thousands of meetings that are taking place all the time that are bringing people here well how does the small business person interact and get to work with those meetings that come here and that's kind of a major role of what a Convention of visitors bureau does is act act as that liaison now how do we do this how do we bring business to our area and our sales staff focuses on bringing basically meetings conferences trade shows sports groups and motor coach in terms of Group business in the photo here you can see that a lot of us were in Los Angeles in May because a major convention called ipw which is Major people all over the world that bring meet um that bring tour groups here it convened in Los Angeles in May and next June it's coming to Chicago so we want that that convention that's going to be held in McCormick Place to be as um popular and well attended as possible so we went and met with thousands of stakeholders in in May to get them to come to Chicago next year for our meeting and if you think about any meeting or conference that you see here whether it be the restaurant show in mccor place or any other meeting we're always out there selling it and getting people to come to Chicago when Chicago's chosen as the destination and our marketing staff focuses on advertising and putting together promotional programs to highlight why to have a meeting here again all the different destinations are all competing to get meetings and visitors to come how do we show ourselves in the best light on you know on social media in digital website ads reaching people through their mobile devices radio print so a lot of what we do besides selling is marketing how do we show and put our area in the best light so that people really want to come here and have a meeting here so a lot of what we do is take all the things that we have and it also starts with your hotels and places that will'll host a meeting we try to make it digestible for people because a meeting planner or an event planner doesn't want to have to call 25 hotels they want to talk to one person who can really quickly show them all their options in coming to your area and this is just a quick image of a one sheeter that we take to trade showen conventions so they can see the lay of the land of our area and this is for my Convention of visitors bureau obviously and then it shows our hotels and it shows all the breakdowns of their meeting space so if you know that you have a meeting that needs you know 500 attendees in a room right off the bat you can see what three hotels fit that if you want a more smaller setting or you need different kinds of seating arrangements you can in a quick glance see that again we are a service to get people to come and have an event here and what they want is one person that is very knowledgeable of the area that can serve up all the options that they have in hosting a meeting and again they don't have to call 25 hotels so um this is something that we do and again highlighting our destination as a preferred one to meet and convene in we have a website visit Chicago norshore all of the convention of visitors bureaus have really um excellent websites that allow people to um access meetings and all the information they need in hosting and traveling and coming to an event and sourcing suppliers it's all on our website we realize now that everything's digital based we have planners that are planning meetings at 2:00 in the morning in their pajamas they don't want to wait to have to talk to us they want to have easy immediate access to information and you can see that we use like photography that is like oh I want to be on that beach so um a lot of what we do is to um curate what we have and to make our areas look as desirable as possible to visit and host an event I'm not going to go through this it looks like a hodge podge here but it's more um defined when you're scrolling through it what we try to do is get people to be interested in our area regardless of their interest okay so somebody might be into golfing some people might not be most people are into eating we find but um you know where to find the best frenchise so we're always coming up with different um seasonal campaigns campaigns by themes if people are into Arts if they're into sports and and somehow and then each of these is promoted in digital format to specifically those targeted audience so again whether you're interested in shopping the beach golfing Sports education we have something that can fulfill your interest and needs and we have it all in one place on our website but our Outreach in digital marketing targets people of just just to have that interest and just so you know too for most most of us in the Chicagoland area since we're so fortunate to be in the middle of the country and we have so many people within our you know 360 degree radius which you don't when you're on the East Coast or South Coast because you have an ocean for half of your area we are very fortunate to have a large source of um our visitor and planner pool for our most bureaus in the Chicagoland area our size 70% of the people drive here that are meeting and visiting um versus flying um and we concentrate on a 300 mile radius yes we do marketing beyond that border but the most of what our dollars are spent is 300 mile radius or closer to us now this is now and you get to hear someone else speak for for a second here so don't you know get bored of me but um this is an example of out outside of the obvious hotels and restaurants what other kinds of businesses do we work with and this is just a snapshot of of a lot of different types of businesses that work with our that we work with at a convention and visitors bureau and I have one of our members Laura horvitz on on the zoom today um she is owner and managing director of joovie and she'll talk a little bit about her business and how she interacts with us excellent uh thanks Gina and uh hello to everybody out there uh as you said I'm Laura Horwitz and I the owner of joy nannies and babysitters um basically we do a lot of work around the whole whole Chicago area providing nannies and babysitters for families uh we hire them legally and we support the families and the caregivers throughout what we do um I've been here for 17 years doing this but have grown up in the in the area as well uh one of the things that people don't know that we do is we do event care and hotel care and so that's where the CVB comes in um we will we can provide child care at events for groups um we just um we're at mccormic place last week for a large conference down there um but we do individual Family Care at hotels as well and so whether it's the individual um tourist coming to the area who needs um care in their hotel room while they go out to dinner or do something else in the area um or um the someone who has a business meeting here and needs to bring their wants to bring their family um we can provide that now as I said not many people know that we do that because they know it's not necess something that um they think of right away and so one of the things with the cdb being not just Hospitality businesses small businesses such as mine we're still needed by those visitors that come to town whether they're driving or flying in and so the CBB is able to bring all these small businesses together and also then recommend them to the the people that are coming to the area um broad needs you see from the list here um there are all kinds of different things that people will utilize when they do to the area and they might realize that they that they need that until they get here um or if they plan ahead that's even better um and so the CBB gives information about Community Resources a very wide broad thing and it gives credibility to us because even though we do have a great website because we are I'm part of a franchise so we do have a nationwide Network it gives me credibility here um to be a member and that Gina can recommend me specifically you know to someone that they're talking to um from the cbbb uh the CBB has really helps in three ways for small businesses I know recently we we um attended the hospitality hires North job fair so that we can help hire more people to to provide services for people who come into town um they connected to the visitors which is the obvious um thing that they do but it's also networking among the businesses because even though somebody might not say oh I need childcare when I'm in town to Gina or her staff but they might be talking to someone here and say oh you know it would be great if I could come to dinner at your place but I'd really have my kids kids here with me and they could then recommend us as well and so it's it's a whole network of of the connections there um and we really feel like it's a different Niche um versus the Chamber of commer that Gina mentioned uh a little bit different uh and a focus on that Hospitality but we feel it's a really it's a very uh beneficial relationship to be part of the C CVB and if people do have questions at the end um I'd love to answer questions about how they've helped us in many ways so excellent so thank you Gina thank you Laura and you can see we have we have so many different Niche kinds of businesses that have um worked with us um that Supply um services or product to um our meetings events and our own operations as cbbs um so on our website people can go on and request or sort by some of those categories the interests and the suppliers that they're looking for this is all on our website so this is again how small businesses can benefit from working with a CBB and um I'm just showing some examples obviously this is for the Chicago Northshore Bureau which is the Bureau I run but um we all do this kind of advertising so I talked about like the ways we reach out this is some of the digital advertising that we do throughout the Midwest um we also do radio I just heard our my own ad on the radio yesterday um again getting people to interact and come to events that are taking place in our area our again we try to get people we don't really advertise within our own region okay so sometimes people are like wait what do you do because they don't see it immediately within the NorthShore but that's not what we are we're a visitors bureau so we want to engage people to come here that aren't in our area and we do a ton of social media so one of the we have a St that just works on um creating posts targeting them we do reals we do a lot in the dig in the social media space and a a small business can come to us and um ask us to promote something that they're doing that's unique and special and they don't have the resources the Acumen or the dollars to do the kind of social media outreach that we can do for them so um in working with us they can get that kind of Outreach quickly and um we it's very important what we do in terms of posting is we put advertising in behind every post we do we never just organically post something so each post has a specific strategic audience that you know goes to it so even for example when you're looking at it here when we're promoting a event for children touch a truck that audience is very different than on the right someone that's going and eating fine dining and so just that ability to write the post in a certain way post it know the audience have the ability to do the paid social media like that's a skill set that we offer our businesses that they just don't have they don't have the resources or the knowledge or the acument of how to do it and we do it for them we do things things like we have a restaurant month every year so we did have one in 2024 so don't look at that number but um we do promotions all the time whether it's what to do on Super Bowl Sunday back to school the holidays Halloween Mother's Day we take any kind of event or theme and find a way to promote small businesses attached to that theme because it's it's more engaging that way instead of just saying go shop here or go here but if you um Market it and put the SM the things that the small businesses have to offer in a themed approach that like entices people then they like that so um our restaurant month is like in its 20th year that's just one example but what I'm trying to relate here is that we as part of the creative work that we do is try to find a way to take what our small businesses have to offer and put it out there in the public in a way that's exciting and different and enticing for them and then we also um we Supply data to our a to our different business areas and districts and um this is data that is not um it's pretty expensive and so we're happy that we are able to do it this is one of the programs that was funded by our um tourism alive grant that we'll talk about in a second but um we are able to tell people their visitors are coming from and the demographic of those visitors and very importantly too if somebody's coming to a certain business where what else are they doing during that visit so that different businesses can partner with each other because they now have data to know that wow 35% of the people that are coming from to one business or area are also doing something else during their visit and you would have no idea and this is all cell phone data so obviously um and how this is different than some other data sources that small businesses uses ours is only now about visitors we do not track what the local person is doing this is what the visitors doing while they're here so um this data is really helpful for a lot of our business districts and um small businesses and then we also assist in community Community Information and Outreach we have a newsletter that goes out the first business day of every month and it's this is just a snapshot of it um but it allows us to get um information on special events that are taking place and we have a really broad reach with our newsletter because it's been around since 2004 every month so people have signed up our list is all organically sourced in terms of the people that have signed up to get it and then we also have um a newsletter that goes out to planners ahead of time so they way ahead of time we tell them what's coming up so that they can plan a visit so if they're coming here a lot of what we do now is called bleisure it's business and Leisure if someone is coming for a business meeting or a wedding or whatever they're doing they can also see that there is a festival that is something they would an art festival or a race or something that they'd be interested in engaging with they can do that and extend their stay if they extend their stay they're spending more money in the area so anything that we can do to make our area um appealing so that somebody that's coming here for business purposes can stay longer that's what we want and we also work and our fun a lot of our funding and our partnership comes through the Illinois office of Tourism they have a lot of resources and help us a lot in getting the word out of our area they have a large advertising budget and the information that they funnel for each of the 38 convention and visitors bureaus in Illinois comes from us so an IND a small business cannot contact the State and get their information out it has to come from the local convention and visitors bureau and then funnel to the state we also have different Partnerships I'm just showing what ours is since um in the NorthShore we have Northwestern University that's part of the Big 10 conference we are part of that Network and we bring that brings a lot of business some of you may or may not know but we have a new stadium being built here so we have a lot of people that are going to be working on that project and again having a big 10 University in your area and Big 10 sports and conferences brings a lot of business to our area so this is just an example of additional Partnerships that a convention and visitors bureau can have and we are so excited I don't know what are we in our third year Christa will help me with this but um we were so fortunate to receive a um large Grant from the Cook County Bureau of economic development that allowed us to recover from the effects of the covid-19 pandemic and um it's been really exciting for us you can see and I'm not going to talk about this slide because that's why I'm introducing Christa so Christa Elum is the program manager with the Cook County Business Bureau of Economic Development she's our program manager for our program that works really closely with us she probably didn't work that much in the tourism space before um this program but now we've sucked her in and she's been a great partner and without further Ado Christa take it over thanks Gina thanks a lot um and thank you all for being here uh my name is Christy Elum like I said and I'm with the Bureau of Economic Development and I'm happy to talk about tourism alive so this is um you know we have a number of programs small business source is one tourism alive is another and we're always looking for ways at the county to um increase our impact uh with the programs that we have do some cross marketing you know just figure out how to strengthen and support small businesses in you know in Cook County so this is just another example so um like we said we we got an arpa Grant and we have um four travel tourism and Hospitality Chicago's Northshore uh is our subrecipient and then we're working with the other Suburban convention and visitors bureaus in Cook County so between the um five and then there's also chose Chicago but we're focusing on suburbs but between these five um cvbs almost every municipality is included in uh in Cook County so um I would encourage you to take a look look at these um at these organizations whether you're located you know in the western suburbs or south suburbs or whatever and um take a look at their websites and see what um what they've got to offer next slide please so our Cook County tourism um project this is our what we call our Hub website I'm not going to talk too much about this website because the next um page is really a good example yes thank you these are the four um what we call the four pillars of our program I think probably uh the workforce side would be of interest to a lot of small businesses as um Laura mentioned we did have a Hospitality hires recently um where we had a number of small businesses show up and um you know it was a hiring event very focused on uh on the NorthShore but that's just one example of how we're doing Workforce Development uh we're also doing local Investments which is means um giving money directly to the individual cvbs to do programs that really fit their area outside Chicago is um another one of our initiatives that's really designed just to get people outside this came out of the pandemic when we realized that while many businesses and shops were closed outside was not so we really wanted to um so we have a website that is very user friendly um very easy to look at and it just shows you a number of different activities you can do in Suburban Cook County and then finally um we have been part of a regional marketing campaign which um is with other is with other counties and other um Suburban cvbs to highlight the Chicago area because as we all know visitors don't care if they're visiting a restaurant in Brookfield or B or burdge you know whatever they just think Chicago and that's that's our area um so next thank you so as we talked about there's five suburban cvbs and each one each one is a little different you know depending on their geography I'm sure you guys are familiar with for example Oak Park has Frank Lloyd Wright um homes it also includes like Brookfield Zoo um you know meet Chicago northwest they're close to the airport and O'Hare and shamberg and so they've got more of the meetings and Leisure so each area has their own sort of flavor um you know there's some overlap but each one is a little different so it's been great to work with each one of these and learn a little bit more about the businesses in those areas and um how they work together and how they support the communities around them here's the context I would strongly encourage uh um listeners to take a look at this um you usually send this website out or send the presentation out domini yep okay yes so the websites for all the Suburban cvbs are on here as well as contact information for each of the organizations and then mine as well so if there's anything that we can do to help um connect you with the CVB in your area or if you're not sure please feel free to reach out and we'll be more than happy to connect you next slide and um actually I think we're right about on time and we can take some questions is that right domy Valaria great thank you everyone thank you thank you Krista thank you any qu we love questions so yeah we had one question come through um from Michelle it's asking are there certain requirements for small business to be advertised on your site or any CVB site such as your and business uh size of business Etc um not really well first of all we are a 501 C6 trade Association like a chamber so most of us are membership based but not all so you have to talk to the individual convention and visitors bureaus now when we talk about the kind of businesses we work with we do work with business that are in some way related to the hospitality um industry and a lot of times we'll get calls from mortgage companies or people that do credit card processing or just something that's really not related to our core Mission and we refer them to our Chambers you know I mean we um the ROI that they're going to get from us is specifically related to the visitor and meeting clientele that come to to our area we really do not service all business sectors even though sometimes they call us to be part of us so it never hurts we're all very friendly people all the convention and Visitor Bureau um leadership and it never hurts to ask and just talk to um a Convention of visitors bureau person and ask if their business would be appropriate because you'd be surprised like for example Laura who supplies you know babysitters at first glance you'd be like what but she was just at mccormic place she Services um you know families that have um that are here for events or meetings at hotels so there is a purpose and we're happy to make that tie if it makes sense if not we will talk to the business and if we feel they're more appropriate to our Chambers you know we will refer them to the chamber so um it really depends on their relationship to the hospitality industry we don't want to just you know um provide false um connections we want people to really feel that they're going to get an Roi out of working with us and um so it's really like if they're Hospitality related in some way amazing um yeah I see one attendee Michael puts um has their hand up Michael if you had a question um please feel free to type in in the Q&A chat box um and then we can answer that directly and while we wait on Michael I have a question for you Gina because you sparked my interest um this was some great information I thank you all for joining us Laura your business is amazing um I did not know that we offer babysitting Services um for those who come in and as a parent of a small child I definitely know that that is a valuable and much needed resource um for last minute meetings that come up when you're networking and someone you know is like ah I can't you know what am I going to do that so that was great that's a wonderful Niche um to have in this marketing industry but um Gina my question for you is I have people who come to me all the time who um are looking for like event spaces to hold um in you know conferences big large conferences for like over a hundred people but they are within the city limits um greater Chicago land area would they tap into um a convention Bureau visitors bu visitors bureau um to locate um space you know or you know resources for something like that or are you only working with people who are outside of the city yes um Chicago has its own Bureau called Chu Chicago so people can for the most part go on that website to Source a meeting a smaller meeting um to be completely honest the mission of CH Chicago having one of the largest convention centers in the United States is to get large meetings like they really don't one on-one on their staff side work with a meeting that's under a thousand people because of the size of the city but because of that they have a very robust website at CH chicago.com in which someone can Source um a meeting venue now I'm a little biased because first of all I'll I have to be I I I I do think I can speak on this behalf I worked at Chu Chicago for 17 years so I know the Chicago side and I know the small Bureau side and um you get a lot more attention if you're willing to leave the border of the city and come to a smaller Bureau because we will hold the hand of a smaller meeting or event um it's just not a priority for CH Chicago but no shade on them it's just you know um what their priorities are again having the largest convention center and having 40 full service hotels to fill um helping a smaller event of a hundred people or less is just not they're not going to get the same kind of handholding they will at a Suburban um CVB but their website is very robust to help source that if that's what if that's where they want to be great thank you for that clarification thank you that's amazing did we get that question Mercedes we did um so Michael asked he said I would love to bring a baseball tournament to the Wheeling area it would provide awesome Economic Development have you ever done anything like this yes um so and I know Michael hi Michael um we have there's a beautiful facility Heritage Park in Wheeling and our issue has been in terms of um bringing some of these sports events to our area and I'm just speaking for the NorthShore this isn't true for some of the other Suburban areas is that our park districts which manage most of the sports facilities that are in our area they don't have salespeople to answer the questions of the stakeholders do site inspections of their facilities they really don't do that so if we send them leads for business for sports tournaments no one answers that so um you have facilities in Springfield and Rockford and Poria that are very large that I'm talking about baseball fields or other things like that where they have a whole Sal staff and if you send them a lead for a tournament they answer you in 24 hours and they know the prices and the specs and the local hotels and they are on it they work with their convention and visitors bureaus to bring that business because again once you're farther away from the the city of Chicago you have a lot more land and sports is your main bread and butter we don't find that to be the case here and um again most of our facilities are owned by the park districts whose number one um audience is their local taxpaying residents so they don't want to tell a local um you know Little League team that you can't play in May of 2026 because we have a big tournament coming here they have to be answerable to their taxpayers first and foremost so we have tried to book um tournaments into the area but again for all the reasons I just said it hasn't been that um receptive for us and also for our hotels prefer um corporate and Association business versus Sports business but we might be um looking into the sports business more in the future perfect we do not have any current open questions um but we definitely have additional time if anyone has some please feel free to drop them in the Q&A Thank You Jennie you've been giving a lot of great information honestly I myself as I stated earlier I was not really that familiar with this space but you know you don't realize you work in this space until you know about this space so now that I see learn and hear about it I have been dabbling in this for many many years not knowing of the opportunities that you all offered um so I do thank you um I told you when we met that I was really really happy to have this conversation for our small business audience because I was at a meeting and I heard a small business um tell other businesses that they tap in and they were able to make more money at one convention than they had ever made in like over an entire year of working their business and they were like screaming it at the rooftops like you all need to try this you know so when you you know was talking about this I'm like we really need to let people know what else is available to them so this is great thank you thank you so much thank you so are we at time are there any other questions that came in questions but a lot of great compl yes G and just the entire like your organization thank you I'll back up what you just said as well is when we first were looking into joining and and being part of a CVB versus a chamber I wasn't really convinced that that it was going to be something that that would be as useful for us um but obviously it has turned out to be um a great partnership and you know it's something worth trying if you think you're even within that you know if your business is even possibly going to be part of you know this kind of hospitality area um you know talk to Gina give it a try because it definitely is um very very useful in different ways in other other other organizations as well thank you and I love how you all have connected with the chambers especially as a source with our referral Partners now also being connected to Chambers and not just um small business or Community Based organizations uh I feel like the businesses in Cook County are really able to receive like a broader touch and reach of resources that we didn't really know was out there before Co so just looking at the positive of Co it opened our eyes you know to so many new opportunities or you know resources that's been here all the time that we didn't know you know but now through covid and through um additional the ARA dollars that you know been granted to different different states throughout the nation um it has shined a light on resources that people didn't know was available to them and were only utilizing governmental you know resources but you know you all who are on this line please tap into these Chambers you know to these bureaus to your community based organizations and not only feel that they don't don't put all your eggs in one basket cuz as you have probably seen heard and learned today there are so many offerings to you to help really Elevate and skill your business to the next level and I'm so excited and Christa uh to my counterpart here at C County thank you thank you so much for jumping on um and everything that you all are doing with um tourism alive and uh you you talk what is it get out Chicago look I'm outside Chicago outside Chicago Chicago I'm plugging you all Shameless plug outside Chicago y it is summertime shy time to get out outside Chicago you know so that we can um really take Advent and what we have to say it's not like the circle of life but as we go out and everything that you all are doing Gina and Christa it's not only feeding you know the the bureaus or this is feeding our local economy so these dollars you know are regenerating our community from you know money that was lost yes during covid these opportunities are bringing money back into our community a lot of people don't tap into that as as far as economic development you know I worked on this on another side and when this when these dollars come into our community guess what it lowers our taxes because we now have other money that can come in and help our communities and our cities and you know our our governing bodies run and so thank you all for strengthening you know what we're doing here you know in Chicago and the Chicago land area cuz you know I always say we're stronger together than we are aart and this is definitely um a collect to work and you know this is a great body I thank you all um does anyone have anything to say oh did I see another question come up Mercedes I see a one here um no it's just a testimonial talking about how wonderful H Chicago Shore is so amazing to see that um I did want to share one additional thing um before everyone hops off as you know uh this webinar wday is a series and we are joined each month with a different Source partner um just Shing Collective knowledge and resources to help small businesses in Cook County so next month is our August webinar Wednesday we will be joined by Greater Southwest Development Corporation I'm discussing the small business investment fund um just a few details about what it is how to apply I me what you should know thank you that's great yes and that's another one of our wonderful Source Partners so please join in tell anyone you know we are going to be talking about an additional access to Capital opportunity for small business businesses so please do tap in or share if it's not for you so I thank you all for joining us um thank you Laura Gina Christa um for coming and sharing the information that you had thank you Mercedes and Valera for assisting us throughout um the webinar and U thank you for everyone who joined have a wonderful rest of your Wednesday thanks everyone thank you bye by

2024-08-09 04:31

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