Sue Czeshinski
Director, Dubuque Convention and Visitors Bureau

Additional conversation with Sue Czeshinski

TH: I suspect that a lot of people think they know what you do, but they really don't know. What goes on in your office here?
SC: You know, that's an interesting question because in this type of work, we're really the only ones who do what we do here. There's not another convention and visitors bureau here. There are a lot of attractions, hotels, other types of businesses, but only one bureau. It's our role, really, to promote Dubuque as a destination for in-bound travelers. A lot of times people don't realize the impact that that has. Now we're really into destination management. That's product development. That's marketing of a product. It's assisting in developing existing business to be successful. It's all of those things.

Sue Czeshinski Age: 40 Occupation: Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce Convention and Visitors Bureau Director since 1994. Family: Husband: Mark. Son Nick (age 13). Daughter: Lauren (8). Parents: John and Jean Bishop of Waterloo, Iowa. Hometown: Waterloo. Dubuque resident since 1987 Education: Bachelor of Arts Degree, Loras College, 1987. Professional associations: International Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus, Iowa Convention and Visitors Bureau Association, Eastern Iowa Tourism Association. Community leadership: Dubuque Rotary Club member. Awards: Jaycees Young Person of the Year 2000 Award. 2003 Upper MidWest Convention and Visitors Bureau Professionalism Award. Hobbies: Horseback riding, swimming, reading.

TH: What would be some examples of some of the projects or some of the inquiries that you deal with here?
SC: The great thing about a job like this is that there's no typical day. Every day is a little bit different. We may start out the morning visiting with someone who might want to relocate a tourism-related business here. Then we might have a meeting with someone who's looking at having a convention in Dubuque. Then we might spend some time greeting a tour company who's come from England or right across the river. We may be working with our partners in Illinois and Wisconsin trying to come up with a new promotion that will attract people, not just to Dubuque but to the entire area. The days are varied. I don't think there's anything really that happens by chance. We do a lot of long-term planning. Our work doesn't happen day-to-day; it really is more of a long-term effort. Where do we see the community, not just now, but 2010 and beyond? What it's going to take to build the destination, to keep people coming here? In our case, what's old is new in many cases, but we also have to look at what the opportunities for growth are because, in our business, the competition is fierce.

TH: Your office is part of the Chamber of Commerce and you have some funding from members. You also get some public money.
SC: That's right.

TH: How does that break out, and in what proportions?
SC: In general, the bulk of it is hotel/motel tax. We receive 50 percent of the 7 percent tax that's collected by the hotels. We use that for tourism marketing. We also receive a county grant each year in the range of about $25,000. We also receive an allocation from the chamber that member dues help to pay into. Then we do a lot of cooperative advertising and other promotions and help our members to place advertising in different markets with us and that makes up a portion of our budget, too.

TH: So all told, how much money do you have to work with to promote Dubuque?
SC: It will range from year-to-year, but it's usually in the range of $800,000 to $900,000 in total among all those programs and tax money.

TH: About how much of that is public money?
SC: Well, this year, we've got a loan payback that we do with the city, but the 50 percent was $679,000 this year. That's our half, so our take this year will be $644,000.

TH: You have $800,000 to $900,000 to promote Dubuque. How do you make decisions in terms of how that's allocated?
SC: We have a board of directors and we also have a number of committees that weigh into the decision-making process. We do a planning session every year. We talk about what are the priorities for Dubuque? What are the short- and long-term goals that we have and then the dollars are allocated based on those priorities? It becomes pretty clear that a lot of our money is spent to promote consumer, business, drawing individuals to the community. Quite a bit is spent on meeting and conference business, to draw convention delegates. There's a good portion spent on group tour business, to draw groups, because those are mid-week pieces of business. Of course, we have staff that assists with that kind of things. So those are all priorities for the bureau. Hospitality training, customer service training is another key part of what we do. So those have traditionally been the areas where we spend the budget.

TH: In your office, how do you measure success?
SC: We have several different tools that we use. Studies that we receive from the state. We also do gate-attendance studies to try and get a sense of how many visitors actually come to Dubuque. My favorite study is one that comes from the state. It's a Visitor Expenditure Study. Gives me an idea of what visitors are spending in the community, how much they spend, how much that means to the city, the county. It's a really helpful tool for us to say, "OK, how do we fare in comparison to every other county in the state? What's our ranking? Are we moving up? Are we staying stagnant?" All that helps us to determine our level of success. We do quite a bit of tracking through our Iowa Welcome Center. We track with the hotels daily to see what their availability is so we can help fill them every day. We run reports on that so we can see where our soft areas are so we can fill them.

TH: What are these studies showing? What's the trend and what's the forecast?
SC: It's been interesting. Over time, we saw a real peak in 1991, of course, with riverboat gambling. Occupancy peaked. Attraction attendance peaked. Then we saw a real plateau. Things leveled off. The competition got more fierce for meeting conference business. We'd attracted quite a few groups to Dubuque that were really not thinking about coming back because the civic center (Five Flags) just wasn't conducive to those bigger, professional meetings. We were looking at just a variety of different situations I think in terms of what the competition would bear. I think that's when we got heavily involved in America's River. How could we upgrade the destination to accommodate our needs since we're drawing new business to the area? That has just been key to our success. Our numbers have skyrocketed. Everything from the hotel-motel tax collections to the visitor expenditures. We're one of the top increases in the state of Iowa. The governor held a press conference to announce Dubuque was up 6.3 percent in vi sitor expenditures this year. And we hadn't even accommodated all of the groups that we have on the schedule for upcoming years yet. That was exciting. Brought back groups that we hadn't seen here in years or that had never been here. Drawing a lot of new business and repeat business to the area. All the indications right now are that we're finally on the radar screen - not just locally and regionally, but nationally. So that's positive.

TH: And you attribute a lot of that to having the Grand River Center?
SC: Yes ... yes. You can't even get into the game if you don't have a facility to compete with. When people come in and they see the Grand River Center, it's, "Wow!" It connects with the river. It's the right set of meeting space. It's the right size. It can be small meetings, large meetings. It fits a variety of needs. It hits that "wow" factor. You know, there are buildings everywhere, but where can you get the space that accommodates your breakout, your trade show, your ballroom functions, all those things simultaneously in a professional manner? People are pleasantly surprised when they see it.

TH: Who is your competition?
SC: Well, it depends on the market segment that we're trying to attract. It's interesting. Dubuque's in a little bit different position than some communities are. We do a great weekend business. In fact, now we do a better weekend business than we ever have because we've got so many leisure activities. A lot of us are also looking for that meeting conference business, so we're competing against Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Davenport all the time. Always have, probably always will for state association business. But we've stepped it up a notch and now we're competing with other major cities for some of these regional and national groups. Now, when we hosted Watchable Wildlife (2004), for example, nobody from Iowa was competing for that bid. It was Seattle, Wash.; Portland, Ore.; Anchorage, Alaska; West Palm Beach - some major destinations. We're in the running in some cases for these national groups with other big cities. And that's kind of exciting.

TH: We've spent a good amount of time here talking about all the good things that are going on and all the things Dubuque does have to offer and how that's translating into success. But in your competition for some of these conventions and seminars and trade shows, are there any things that you bump into with some regularity that might be considered a drawback? What might be a drawback of Dubuque in pursuing this type of business?
SC: We're entering a new piece of the market we haven't been in before, and they aren't as familiar with Dubuque. They don't know why they should come to Dubuque versus Milwaukee or Madison or other locations. I think there's a perception barrier: "Dubuque, Iowa? Now tell us where that is." But it's an opportunity for us, too. It takes time to cultivate relationships. I would say that if we had any barrier at all, it's just lack of knowledge and lack of use of our facilities from the past.

TH: I anticipated hearing something about airline connections. Is most of the business we're talking about still motor coach and over-the-road, rather than air?
SC: You know, when we talked to our members about difficulties they have, I would say air travel is one that comes up. However, I think it's an education process. Every time we work with the airport to try and secure a big group and we've been able to work with Dallas (American Airlines headquarters) and with Dubuque to make sure that American can accommodate those groups, people are pleasantly surprised. We have worked really hard with the airport to make sure that we're all on the same page. When we go to some of these big national conventions, we bring someone from American with us, that we offer the group rates, that we have all that outlined for them. We have to do that leg work up-front to make it easier.

TH: They might add flights?
SC: They'd add flights or look at probably adding additional charters. It's a process but it can be managed. And they've been great about working with us every time we put something like that together.

TH: Now, I'm certainly not making any accusations, but we just have seen London awarded the Olympics for 2012. When Salt Lake had the winter Olympics, there was a revelation that there was money changing hands to help win this bid. Do you, or some of your counterparts out there, encounter situations where are trying to sweeten the pot to get a large convention?
SC: It's interesting that you ask me that because that is something that has come forward in our line of work. It's a question because everybody has different ways of securing business. You don't want to get into a bidding war. It's our belief, I think, as a convention and visitors bureau that we don't have to buy people's business. We can sell people on coming here. When you do have to buy people's business, then is it really worth getting? I think those are things you have to think about. But people do it and it does make it difficult to compete if you don't do it. Have we run into that and has it been a stumbling block? No, not really. But I'm sure there are people who do it.

TH: But in the industry, it can happen?
SC: It can happen. It happens. People are looking at different ways to make their conference lucrative for them, and all those options can come onto the table. I think we've just been good about working with the customer and providing the service that they need. We've gone so far as to show them how their conference can be profitable in Dubuque just by using the bids that we've secured and outlining that for them. Taking their costs and explaining to them how that works. It's an education process. Some people just like to throw money on the table. We like to spend a little more time with the customer and show them how Dubuque is a good value for the dollars they spend.

TH: OK. So I'll mark you down: You don't give bribes.
SC: No, we don't bribe anyone, no. We don't have to. When destinations do that, it's typically a sign that they can't get business a different way.

TH: I know you're involved in the signage, the "way-finding system." And the TH, it seems like for about 100 years or so, was writing editorials saying, "We've got all these visitors. We want them to come. But we're doing a terrible job of helping them find our attractions." Now, I think we're in the second season of the signage system, and it looks great. Is it working? What comments do you hear from visitors?
SC: We've had a lot of positive comments from people. In fact, we have one family that stopped in and said, "We saw your signs and we thought it was so neat that you'd put up all the colored signs that we decided to follow them and see if we could find a particular attraction we'd chosen. And they drove right to it." So we get that kind of comment all the time: "Thanks for the signs."

TH: One thing I've got to ask: Why did the "Y Camp" sign go back up on U.S. 20 (by the University/Cedar Cross intersection)?
SC: You know, I don't know. We literally drove this city hundreds of times with the DOT (Iowa Department of Transportation) staff, with our other committee members, trying to decide which signs would come down, which would stay up, what to sign, what not to sign. That one always was on the list of, "You're out of there." I have no idea why that's back up.

TH: You mentioned customer service. And you mentioned trying to make it easy for visitors. What role does an average Dubuquer play in this whole picture of tourism?
SC: I think one of the roles that all the residents in Dubuque play is one of being an ambassador for our community. I think people underestimate how important that is. But we hear continuously how friendly people in Dubuque are and how people would stop what they were doing and give directions or hop right in their car and say, "Follow me, I'll take you there," or give advice on where to go to eat or where to stay or what to do. If everyone were to do that every time somebody asked, that would be just such a service. People remember that. Many times, people who come here for a weekend vacation, they will think about the possibility of relocation here. Folks from The Trolley get questions like that all the time: "What's real estate cost in Dubuque? Tell us more about your school system here." Those kinds of things. Those things are running through people's minds. The friendlier the residents are for the community, the better off we are in terms of attracting people long-term here. Hospitality is one thing visitors remember when the come back from a trip.

TH: Where do you like to go on vacation?
SC: Well, I like to go to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. I like to go to Galena. I took a second honeymoon there with my husband. Sometimes you forget what's in your own backyard. Where else do I like to go? Portland, Seattle, kind of out back where we're from originally. Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, is beautiful, too. I get the chance to see all these places at work and then I can go back and check them out on my own time later, but it really one of the great parts about the job, in addition to all the neat people, you get to travel to some neat places, too.

TH: What do you like to do in your spare time?
SC: I like to ride horseback.

TH: Do you own a horse?
SC: No, I don't. I don't have my own horse but my daughter and I really like horses. Been doing that my entire life. I also like to swim. The whole family likes to swim. Like to just spend time with my kids and do some walking in the evenings and some reading, too.

TH: In an interview you did two years, you said that one of your goals was to make Dubuque the No. 1 tourist destination in Iowa.
SC: Mm, hmm.

TH: What's your assessment? Is that mission accomplished or still a ways to go?
SC: We're on our way. We were ranked eighth and ninth a couple of years ago and now we're to sixth, so we're headed in the right direction in terms of visitor spending. Of course, we have Iowa's No. 1 attraction right here in the Port of Dubuque with the museum, so I think we're right on the right track for that.

TH: From a career standpoint, what would be the next challenge or the next step or do you see yourself following this course for the time being?
SC: Well, I've asked myself that from time to time, "What's next?" But you know, this position has been so challenging and has allowed for so many what next development-wise, that it really has never gotten boring, has never gotten old. Completely different than it was when I started, so the job has evolved and been more challenging year after year in terms of what the opportunities are. I found it hard to think of doing anything else. I don't know that I wouldn't want to stay and see what the next five to 10 years bring for Dubuque here. I've enjoyed it and I think I might want to stick around and see what happens. You know, all the fruits of the labors that we started here, it's kind of fun to see it start to come around and people wanting to hear how Dubuque did it. That's pretty rewarding. I enjoy it. ?? ?? 11