Armed with a new brand, an aggressive strategy and a $450,000 boost to its 2016 budget, Visit Mobile sits poised to expand the Azalea City’s convention business to unprecedented levels in the new year.

According to figures released Thursday by the former Mobile Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau, Visit Mobile hosted a total of 110 individual conventions for fiscal year 2015, which ended Sept. 30. Combined, those bookings translated to more than 70,000 room nights shared among more than 120,000 attendees, accounting for an estimated economic impact of slightly more than $39 million.

Alabama NewsCenter spoke with Al Hutchinson, Visit Mobile’s president and chief executive officer, about how the city “Born to Celebrate” is positioning itself to reach a broader audience; the role its comprehensive rebranding will play; and the strategies in place to ensure fiscal 2016 continues a five-year trend of obliterating booking goals.

NewsCenter: What local concerns inform how you target convention business?

Hutchinson: We’re in the business of helping our hoteliers and restaurants, and between Mardi Gras and the Senior Bowl, they don’t need much help in January and February, so our sales team’s job is to move the needle to bring more convention business, especially from March to December.

A new tourism campaign aims to draw more visitors to Alabama’s Port City. (contributed)

NewsCenter: Direct funding provided by BP in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster to help Visit Mobile lure additional convention business expired with fiscal 2015. How will you offset the loss of those funds?

Hutchinson: Fortunately, the (Mobile) City Council increased its contribution to our budget for 2016 by $450,000, and we’re going to be extremely aggressive with that additional funding because more visitors means more rooms booked and more incremental tax revenue for city and county coffers.

NewsCenter: So what are your plans for your $2.65 million 2016 budget?

Hutchinson: A chunk of it will be spent on an aggressive Carnival (Cruise Line) strategy with cruises resuming from the Alabama Cruise Terminal next fall. But we’re also going to be very aggressive in our direct sales process by hosting three special client events in three key feeder markets. One will be in Montgomery because that’s the source for statewide associations looking for the best places to hold their conferences and conventions. Another will be in Atlanta because that’s our go-to market for luring corporate and regional conferences. And the third one will be in Washington, D.C., because it’s the Mecca of our national associations.

NewsCenter: How do you plan to leverage improved technology and an increased focus on digital tools to expand your reach?

Al Hutchinson

Hutchinson: We obviously plan to use some of our additional funds to enhance our website, and those improvements should be ready to roll out in about 30-45 days. We know the trend now is for visitors to do almost all of their research and bookings electronically, and we want to be sure our website has the capacity to meet the needs of the new consumer. It won’t all happen at once, but we’re pretty much talking about visitors being able to go to our site and be able to do everything from book a package for the holidays or check out attractions they want to visit while they’re already here for a conference to make a dinner reservation at a particular restaurant or plan out an entire itinerary.

NewsCenter: What is your most high-profile booked convention for 2016 and why?

Hutchinson: No question, it’s the pre-K conference. It starts in January, and we were able to book them for four consecutive years, and that’s huge. Now we’re able to bring the hotel community a base business of approximately 1,300 room nights for four years straight, and if we do a great job and take care of these folks the way we know we will, we may be able to keep them for a number of years beyond that. That’s another strategic push for our sales team in the new year, finding multi-year groups of business that commit to runs of 2-3 years or more.

(Note: In addition to the 1,600-delegate pre-K conference, other high-profile future convention bookings already include the 3,500-delegate Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. conference slated to arrive in March that will account for 2,185 room nights, and the 900-delegate Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies Inc. conference slated to arrive in March 2017 that will account for 1,805 nights.)