Denver ranked 15th for meetings, events

Denver is the 15th-best U.S. city for meetings and events, according to rankings released Thursday by a national event-management company that tracked the number of inquiries and proposal requests sent to metro areas in the past year.

That puts the Mile High City between Nashville, Tenn. (No. 14) and San Francisco (No. 16) on the list compiled by McLean, Va.-based Cvent Inc. No other Colorado cities made the list.

Eric Eden, Cvent Vice President of Marketing, lauded Visit Denver and the city’s convention hotels for working proactively with meeting planners across the country and for creating an experience with its facilities and the 16th Street Mall that draw events to the city. He said the ranking system took into account not just the number of meeting planners seeking information or bids on a city, but also the success rate of that city in landing conventions, especially those that led to hotel room bookings.

“Sometimes cities don’t focus on it,” Eden said of working with meeting planners. “But Denver does focus on it, and that’s why they win a lot of times.”

The top 10 meeting destinations in the United States, according to Cvent, are:

1. Orlando
2. Washington, D.C.
3. Las Vegas
4. Miami
5. Chicago
6. San Diego
7. Phoenix
8. Atlanta
9. Dallas
10. New Orleans

Reported by:  Denver Business Journal