Pioneers in ethnic marketing

Thousands of black accountants, Hispanic engineers, and physicians of Indian origin visiting Philadelphia this year have something in common they may not realize.

The national associations that represent them are holding their big annual meetings at the Convention Center largely because of the efforts of the Multicultural Affairs Congress, a division of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau that played a key role in the history of the center.

Founded 20 years ago, MAC, as it's widely known, is considered the nation's first organization of its kind within a convention bureau - one aimed, initially, at getting African American groups to hold meetings and other events in the city.

Led the last decade by a pair of high-energy women, the multicultural division has widened its focus to sell the benefits of meeting in Philadelphia to organizations that today are as diverse as its own board of directors.

The effort has been so successful - and, at $90 billion a year, the ethnic travel market is big - that the leaders of MAC wonder why other cities don't seem to try as hard to do the same thing.

"We don't understand why other cities don't get it," said Yolanda B. Cooper, the bureau's vice president of multicultural and short-term sales, and half of the division's dynamic duo.

MAC's formation predates the city's having a place to hold big conventions and was instrumental in winning support in the late 1980s from Philadelphia's black political leaders to build the Convention Center, one of those leaders and other officials said.

State Rep. Dwight Evans, one of MAC's founders, recalled last week that many African American residents opposed spending city taxpayers' money on a "downtown project" that they thought wouldn't help their neighborhoods. But Evans and other leaders persuaded constituents to support it, he said, because it meant "green power" in the form of hospitality-industry jobs and opportunities for black-owned businesses to provide services to conventioneers.

"We formed MAC, and talked about it when we traveled around the city and the country," he said. "This was breaking ground, not just for the city, but for the nation. It had never been done before."

Beverly Harper, president of Portfolio Associates Inc., a black-owned Center City marketing firm, said she was among the early skeptics about the Convention Center's value, but Evans changed her mind. The bureau hired her company to do a 1987 study of Philadelphia's potential to attract African American groups, and it found a large untapped market, she said.

Portfolio Associates managed what was then called the Minority Advisory Committee of the bureau for its first five years, and it became a model for the bureau's other divisions, including the Sports Congress and the Life Sciences Congress, that go after specific segments of the conventions market, Harper said.

Convention bureau president Tom Muldoon added: "I don't think there would be a Convention Center if there weren't a MAC. It was really active, prominent, street-wise leaders in the African American community who got it done."

This year, multicultural professional, civic and fraternal organizations - those that identify themselves in their mission statements as serving a particular ethnic group - account for 11 percent of the meetings booked by the convention bureau, said Tanya Hall, executive director of the multicultural congress, and the other half of the leadership team.

Among the groups in 2007 are the National Baptist Convention U.S.A., the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, the National Association of Black Accountants, and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.

Those attending all the gatherings this year will spend close to $30 million on lodging, food, transportation and entertainment, which translates into more than $50 million in total impact as that money filters through the regional economy, Hall said.

"We're light-years ahead of other cities," she said, an opinion shared by convention planners who have chosen to meet in Philadelphia.

Sharon Seay, executive director of the National Association of Funeral Directors and Morticians Inc., who was in Philadelphia last week to prepare for the group's convention here next month, said MAC has given her names of African American businesses her members can patronize and has shown her local landmarks in black history.

"Most cities have an interest in us, but give no special help," said Seay, whose group is based in Atlanta. "Having that extra department there in the convention bureau, dealing with my specialty, made a big difference" both in selecting Philadelphia for the convention and in convincing her that those attending would feel comfortable while they were here, she said.

Of course, MAC's leaders said, providing a friendly reception to all conventioneers is a necessity if Philadelphia wants to thrive in the hospitality business. But Hall said the region's changing demographics in recent years have given it an advantage in appealing to organizations that represent specific ethnic groups.

In the last few years, the multicultural division has made a concerted effort to broaden its appeal beyond African American groups by adding Hispanic and Asian members, she said.

To showcase the cultural diversity, the division publishes a free 50-page "Share the Heritage" visitors guide, so packed with listings of ethnic restaurants and other businesses and attractions that the diversity will surprise even many people who live here.

Hall said that, when she sits down with meeting planners who are potential customers, "I can say that I have services, restaurants and museums that appeal to you. The fact we can say: 'We have communities of people that act, look and speak like you' is a huge win for us."