Mission & Values

What is the Rochester Convention & Visitor Bureau?

Convention and visitor bureaus are not-for-profit organizations charged with representing a specific destination and helping the long-term development of communities through a travel and tourism strategy. Convention and visitor bureaus bring together businesses that rely on tourism and meetings for revenue.

For visitors, CVBs are like a key to the city. As an unbiased resource, CVBs can serve as a broker or an official point of contact for convention and meeting planners, tour operators and visitors. They assist planners with meeting preparation and encourage business travelers and visitors alike to visit local historic, cultural and recreational sites.

Funding for the CVBs, including the Rochester Convention & Visitors Bureau (RCVB), comes from a local lodging tax that is collected from visitors staying in local hotels. The current lodging tax in Rochester is 4% and provides an estimated $1.7 million in funding to the RCVB for its marketing efforts and an additional $1.7 million in funding to the City's General Fund.

The Rochester CVB is governed by a board of directors which normally meets on the third Tuesday of each month at noon. If you have any business for the RCVB Board of Directors please contact Brad Jones, Executive Director.

The mission of the RCVB is to create a public/private partnership to promote Rochester as a convention, sports and leisure destination in the state, regional and national marketplace.

What is the Rochester Amateur Sports Commission?

The Rochester Amateur Sports Commission (RASC) was created in 1991 as a 501c3 nonprofit organization. The primary objective of the RASC is to promote amateur sports in the Rochester area by attracting amateur athletic events to the city.

The RASC works closely with the Rochester Convention & Visitors Bureau (RCVB) to identify and attract various sports events. While the RCVB helps to attract the events it is the responsibility of the RASC to organize and administer these events. The RCVB employs staff that is designated to run the RASC operations. All operation costs are the responsibility of the RASC. While the objective may be to attract amateur sports this is done with economic impact to the community as a main goal.

Why are meetings, sports and tourism important?

Travel and tourism enhances the quality of life for a local community by providing jobs, bringing in tax dollars for improvement of services and infrastructure, and attracting facilities like restaurants, shops, festivals, and cultural and sporting venues that cater to both visitors and locals.

Travel and tourism is one of the world's largest service exports and largest employers. In the United States, travel and tourism is the third largest retail sales sector. The industry generates $117.3 billion in tax revenues (Nov 2009 figures, US Travel). Indeed, travel and tourism is an economic engine and CVBs are the key drivers.

What is the impact of Rochester meetings, sports and tourism?

Rochester's hospitality industry is the community's second largest employer with over 12,000 full-time employees. In addition to jobs, the industry contributes over $520 million overall economic impact and produces in excess of $46 million every year for the City's General Fund in the form of property, sales and use taxes. This money supports community priorities such as public safety and public works and supplements the local citizens' tax burdens.

The Rochester CVB and Amateur Sports Commissions annual sales efforts for conventions, meetings and sports events alone yield a $63 million return to the City of Rochester in 2009. Nearly 120,000 visitors will attend convention and sporting events attracted to the city by the RCVB and RASC in 2010.

The Rochester Convention & Visitors Bureau is also a critical partner in delivering an exceptional experience to our unique medical visitor. It has committed resources, time and talent in delivering visitor information to over 2.7 million visitors annually, conducting marketing and public relations campaigns resulting in 59 million media impressions in 2009 as well as working with Mayo Clinic and the hospitality industry on new initiatives such as Destination Medical Community.

View the Rochester Convention & Visitors Bureau 2010 Report to the Community