Wal-Mart Pulls Convention From KC

Wal-Mart is pulling its annual convention from Kansas City.

The Kansas City Convention and Visitors Association announced Tuesday that Wal-Mart won't hold its year-end business meeting in Kansas City.

Wal-Mart said it has outgrown the hotel package available in the metro.

The company's meeting has taken place each January in Kansas City since 1997. It has grown from 5,000 to 8,000 attendees and brought in nearly $8 million in business.

In a statement, Wal-Mart said: "To better meet the needs of our associates, we will move the annual kick-off meeting to a setting with accommodations that allow for better meeting logistics and additional economies. We are grateful for the hospitality extended by Kansas City over the years and we will continue to explore the possibility of making Kansas City the site for other Wal-Mart gatherings in the future."

Previously, the hotel room block for the Wal-Mart meeting encompassed a 25-mile radius of the convention center. Wal-Mart officials said they will move the convention to a city with a hotel block within five miles of the convention center.

The Wal-Mart meeting was the second most profitable convention for Kansas City, second only to Skills USA. The Skills USA convention will be leaving Kansas City in 2014.

Rick Hughes said it will be hard to find a replacement for the Wal-Mart convention.

"Typically, January is not a real popular month in the Midwest for conventions," said Rick Hughes with KCCVA.

"We can't compete with Orlando in January. We've got to find the sweet spot for us in the convention business," Mayor Mark Funkhouser said.

Funkhouser said the city can't afford to spend millions on incentives to build a new hotel when it is struggling to pay police pensions, fix sewers and improve transit.

"When it does make economic sense is when you look at the 150 to 200 meetings over the last four years we've had to wave goodbye to or not bid on because of the same package," Hughes said.

The Marriott Hotel was the hotel headquarters for the Wal-Mart meeting. The manager said they're disappointed, but they will look for other groups to fill those rooms.

The city is talking to Wal-Mart about bringing other sizeable meetings to Kansas City in the fall.

The city could also move the boat show and flower show to January, thus opening hotel space for February and March.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• KMBC
• Kansas
• City
• Wal-Mart
• convention