By Geri Powell
August 8, 2005

In San Diego (CA), Conference of Mayors Executive Director Tom Cochran addressed the Board of Directors of the Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI) August 2. The organization was formerly the International Association of Convention and Visitors’ Bureaus. Cochran’s remarks took place at the DMAI 91st Annual Meeting.

Cochran opened his remarks announcing the decision of Long Beach Mayor Conference President Beverly O’Neill to put tourism front and center on the Conference’s agenda. She did so by changing the name of the Arts Parks and Entertainment Committee to the Tourism, Arts, Parks and Entertainment Committee.

According to Cochran, this change highlights both the Conference’s commitment to tourism and mayoral recognition of tourism’s major impact on cities. The change also reaffirms the Conference’s strong commitment to strengthening the relationship between mayors and CEO’S of Convention and Visitor Bureau’s (CVB’s), as well as working with the travel industry to promote tourism.

Cochran pointed out that the Conference is addressing the challenge of mayoral term limits and the need to have a sustainable way to remind mayors of the importance of tourism and fostering relationships with their CVB’s. This is being addressed by including tourism on the agenda of the JFK Institute of Politics at Harvard, which provides a forum to educate new mayors about the challenges and opportunities they will face as newly elected CEO’s of their cities.

Recapping the impact of 9/11 on the tourism industry and tourism revenue flowing to cities, Cochran told the Board of Directors that, “Tourism is no longer the appetizer for cities but one of the main courses.”

Expanding on the continued impact of 9/11 and signs of tourism recovery, Cochran cited statistics from a USA Today article dated August 2 “Airline Industry Changes Fast To Recover Service,” which reported U.S. airline capacity is still not back to pre 9/11 levels. The article shows airline capacity, measured by number of seats departing U.S. airports, is 6.1 percent behind September 11th levels. Leading the best of the recoveries based on scheduled seats is Long Beach with a 343.5 percent increase.

Cochran also called attention to the recent events in London and Madrid, which have pushed transit security -along side air security- to the top of the list of homeland security concerns and their impact on public safety and tourism revenue for cities. He also pointed out that orange alerts add 900,000 dollars a day to the nation’s cities transit security costs according to APTA .

Cochran closed his remarks by highlighting the Conference’s partnership with the Destination Marketing Association and the Travel Business Round Table, and touching on a number of other concerns facing international and domestic aspects of the tourism industry.