Meet Minneapolis, our community’s official destination marketing organization, is driven by goals and metrics that demonstrate our success. While we serve a number of diverse constituents, our performance in 2019 is judged by four key performances indicators (KPIs):

• Group room nights contracted
• Leisure room nights contracted
• Minneapolis Convention Center (MCC) revenue generated
• Private revenue generated

I’m pleased to report that we achieved all four of these measures. Our results are audited by an independent third party and expected to be confirmed in March.

Thanks to a persistent push from all sales team members, we achieved both of our room night goals. We also exceeded our MCC revenue goal, based on a wide variety of new and recurring events hosted in 2019. Our private revenue goal is important in order to leverage the dollars the City of Minneapolis invests in our sales and marketing initiatives. Local businesses, through their investments in Meet Minneapolis, create a larger pool of resources so we can compete more effectively in the marketplace. As a reminder, Minneapolis competes directly for meetings and conventions with:

• Chicago
• Denver
• Indianapolis
• Kansas City
• Louisville
• St. Louis

These communities are also aggressively pursuing events, and it takes resources to secure and retain our fair share of the market.

Our new agreement with the City of Minneapolis, for 2020-2024, will have a revised list of KPIs. They are:

• Total room nights (combined group and leisure room nights) contracted
• MCC revenue generated
• Growth in lodging taxes generated
• Partner business retention percentage

The new features of our contract with the City of Minneapolis call for us to be responsible for growth in lodging tax collections. Moving forward, we will be even more focused on those activities which can be tied directly to lodging tax generation. Our partner business retention goal is important from the standpoint of community engagement. We will continue to elevate our efforts and work even harder to ensure that local businesses – big and small – are able to derive benefit from the broad cooperative sales and marketing programs we conduct to sell and promote our city.

In 2020, we will welcome another stellar list of new and recurring events to the Minneapolis region. Please take a look at the list below.

As we set our sights on what’s ahead, I want to thank you – and all of our partners and stakeholders – for your continued support.

*Attendance numbers are provided by partner organizations and are subject to change.

February 14-16: Pheasants Forever, Inc. | 2020 National Pheasant Fest | 20,000 attendees

March 14-20: Midwest Poultry Federation, Inc. | 2020 Annual Convention | 3,500 attendees

March 19-21: NCAA Wrestling | 2020 Division I Wrestling Championships | 40,000 attendees

March 26-28: National Art Education Association | 2020 National Convention | 4,400 attendees

May 5-15: The United Methodist Church | 2020 General Conference | 7,000 attendees

May 22-27: USA Volleyball | 2020 Open Volleyball Championship and Annual Meetings | 6,500 attendees

June 11-14: Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated | 2020 Midwest Conference | 2,600 attendees

June 25-28: U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee | 2020 U.S. Paralympic Trials | 3,400 attendees

July 4-8: GALA Choruses | 2020 - Festival 11 | 6,000 attendees

July 17-19: American Academy of Neurology | 2020 Sports Concussion Conference | 500 attendees

September 9-12: Hispanic National Bar Association | 2020 Annual Convention | 1,000 attendees

November 3-8: National Marrow Donor Program | 2020 Annual Meeting | 1,500 attendees

November 12-15: National Women's Studies Association | 2020 Annual Conference | 1,700 attendees