MeetingSource.com Announces 2019 Best Convention Cities Rankings

Clean air matters: Largely because of clean air, a new factor used in its ranking of convention cities, more than half of the places on MeetingSource.com's annual "Best Cities for Conventions" list appeared for the first time. This includes the top three finishers, Honolulu, Portland (Oregon) and New Orleans. Two cities that placed in the top 10 in 2018, Las Vegas and Denver, moved down in the rankings largely due to air quality.

“We had quite a few cities enter the ranking for the first time since we added clean air as another factor in convention site selection,” said John Horchner, author of the study and the editor of MeetingSource.com.

While meeting planners’ adoption of sustainable practices is increasing, Horchner said it is still slow and one goal of the survey is to raise awareness of the positive influence convention planners can have in protecting the environment.

"Cities have invested millions in building out their convention infrastructure," Horchner said. "They should know that they can get a better return on their investments when its coupled with environmental sustainability."

Other cities that joined the list for the first time included Minneapolis and Rochester in Minnesota, Daytona, Palm Beach and Tampa in Florida as well as San Diego and San Jose in California.

Horchner is quick to point out that using air quality as a proxy for environmental sustainability is an oversimplification of a complex issue.

“We feel we need to start somewhere and air quality numbers are readily available. In the end, it's going to be industry associations and businesses who decide the fate of our environment.”

For the complete list of all 25 best convention cities for 2019, please visit: https://meetingsource.com/top-convention-cities/

For this third annual survey, one hundred and sixty-six cities in the United States were compared across seven convention site selection factors: affordability, ease of access, safety, walkability, promotional appeal, weather and a new ranking factor, air quality.

For details on how rankings were determined, please visit: http://meetingsource.com/site-sourcing/determined-best-convention-city-ratings/.