Pennsylvania Convention Center Using Lower Labor Charges To Attract Future Events
By Hadas Kuznits
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- In celebration of the one-year anniversary of the expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center (see related story), officials there are holding an event this week to entice meeting planners to bring their business to Philadelphia.
The event is like an open house for meeting planners. And in an effort to entice them to bring their business to Philadelphia, the head of the convention center today announced the elimination of an eight-percent management fee usually charged to them.
"This is a service charge for ordering of the labor," explains Ameenah Young, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority. "It's called a 'labor call.' They (the labor suppliers) have a relationship with the unions and they are the official group who does the labor call."
Gretchen Bliss is a planner from Colorado who set up a previous conference in Philadelphia and is looking to return.
What does she think about dropping the eight-percent additional fee?
"I just found out about it," she told KYW Newsradio. "I think it's fantastic. It's still very expensive to come to Philadelphia to run our meeting," she added. "Our meeting, in terms of doing our audio-visual, was about $100,000 more than we do in other cities, and that's because of the labor aspect of it. But dropping that eight percent is obviously going to help the bottom line tremendously."
So how did the Convention Center get the labor supplier to drop the 8% fee?
"The labor supplier would like to stay working here. I mean, if we're not bringing in groups, nobody is working," says Young.
