Study has led to changes in public/private partnership

FARMINGTON — The author of a study of the Davis Conference Center and the county’s convention and visitor industry argues the existing public-private structure of the industry is “appropriate” but could be improved to bring in more tax dollars.

Davis County Commissioner Louenda Downs said the $35,000 study, done by a Minnesota-based consultant, has already played a key role in adjusting the county’s relationship with partners in the tourism industry.

The commission is scheduled to renew contracts with those partners next week.

“We are headed in a better direction. This study will help us,” said Downs, who handles the tourism topic for the commission.
“It doesn’t give us all the answers, but it gives us somebody else’s perspective.”

County leaders ordered the report in June 2008, then asked questions of a first draft, before the final version was presented internally to the county in July 2009.

The study, done by the consulting business Conventions, Sports & Leisure International, is a rare inside look at the operational efficiency of a Davis County industry that is a unique combination of public and private partners.

It is titled the “Management, Marketing and Coordination Study for the Davis Conference Center” and came to light after a public records request by the Standard-Examiner.

“The relatively unique current ownership/management situation in Davis County begins to set the stage for … the types of challenges that would be expected to arise,” CSL wrote in the study.

The partnership between the county-owned Davis Conference Center and the private organization that runs it — the Davis Area Convention & Visitors Bureau — and a privately owned hotel connected to the conference center has been a controversial topic among leading figures in the county.

The partnership is intertwined in a collective effort to try to make a success out of the tourism trade.

Some of the controversy surrounds the creation and management of the partnership over the conference center, plus the tax money used to subsidize it and the tourism efforts.

“If we keep rehashing it, trying to go back, we keep reliving it. We move backward, not forward,” said Downs, a former DACVB board member.
The DACVB annually receives about $800,000 in tax money.

The 2009 report notes the conference center, which opened in 2004, operated on a $1.8 million budget with debt service that included subsidies from the county.

Helping the conference center with its budget was expected from the beginning, but Downs also said one internal discussion looks at operating the DCC on more of a break-even concept, something the study dismissed.

“We are of the opinion that imposing a break-even mandate for the DCC is both contradictory to the original concept of the DCC and the present state of the industry,” CSL writes in an executive summary.

Downs said the amount of county subsidies each year for the Davis Conference Center has been consistently reduced and that the center works on a loss-leader concept by attracting groups and businesses to the county that then bring in new tax dollars.

As an example, she said, new restaurants have sprung up around the DCC.

The 50-page report suggests improvements in such areas as data sharing among the partners, booking policy changes and discounting conferences, plus others.

Kent Sulser is the Davis County Community and Economic Development director. He helps with tourism as part of his job duties.

“This study points out we are doing OK,” Sulser said. “It points out the existing structure is appropriate.”

The report also notes more money could be spent on marketing to promote the DCC and other Davis County events, but that DACVB was already spending amounts “comparable” to others in the tourism trade.

The CSL author reviewed DACVB salaries and found them “higher than some other regional” agencies but “within a reasonable range.”

The DACVB employs seven people, but none of their salaries were listed in the report and have never been made public.

As the county implements some of the study suggestions, Sulser and Downs believe they are on the road to improving the partnership.

For instance, the partner contracts, up for a vote with the commission next week, are for a longer period than the last agreement, a suggestion directly made in the CSL study.