ACWhat makes your city a top meeting/convention destination?
Colorado Springs is the second largest city in Colorado, located along the Front Range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Delegates get a sense of being in the mountains, but enjoy the comfort of a small city because the mountains themselves are just seven miles from downtown. Pike's Peak - America's Mountain - inspired Katharine Lee Bates to write "America the Beautiful" in 1893.

We have an unusually broad selection of accommodations: Full-service resorts, brand-name hotel chains, B&Bs, mountain retreats, and authentic dude ranches are all available in or near Colorado Springs. Our range of outdoor and indoor activities is just as wide.
Tell us about a meeting you're thrilled to have just booked, or a recent meeting you're very pleased with.
The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies will meet here in November 2008, for the second time in five years. Each March or April, at The Broadmoor, we host more than 5,000 attendees of the U.S. Space Foundation's annual three-day trade show.
What is your perspective on destination leadership?
I've come to realize that people who run destination marketing organizations (DMOs) must also be active in issues relative to the community - economic development, recruiting new businesses to establish bases in their cities, political- and non-political state matters. Giving back to the community is critical in order for DMOs to be effective.
What is your city's roadmap for the future?
There are plans in the works for additional hotel and meeting space developments downtown. Additionally, Frontier Airlines is constructing a new maintenance facility here that it expects to have completed by 2010. The new facility will open doors to existing air service directly into Colorado Springs Airport.

We're already trying to convey the message that although we're only one hour south of Denver and Denver International Airport, we have marvelous air service of our own, with eight carriers and more than 55 departures daily.
How have destination marketing organizations (DMOs) evolved over the past 10 years, and how do you see the role of the bureau changing in the future? DMOs have, because of economic and other factors, become far more accountable and performance-based. It used to be that you could go to a city council and request and receive an annual budget of $3 million to $4 million with no questions asked. Now we have to be prepared to demonstrate ROI, ROI, and more ROI. DMOs have also become more competitive for national meeting business, because of an increased supply of facilities and because they realize the value of that business. As part of this competitiveness, they're marketing themselves more aggressively and adding Web sites to their communications arsenals. I don't see an end to these trends.
What is your biggest challenge as a DMO?
Not allowing interpersonal skills to be dwarfed by the power of electronic communication. The Internet is a great tool, but there is no substitute for building relationships with clients. That's something we truly emphasize here.