You may not call it fate, but one could at least say Jack Ferguson is one lucky fellow to take the helm of the Philadelphia CVB just when the city is gearing up to unveil a massive expansion—62 percent, to be exact—of the Pennsylvania Convention Center that will change the face of its meetings offering.
Ferguson assumed the role of president & CEO Jan. 1, taking over for industry heavyweight Tom Muldoon, who led the CVB since 1985.
We caught up with Ferguson shortly before he took charge to ask what initiatives he wants to have the CVB champion under his leadership. He singled out three as being paramount:
- The customer experience: "If we have that customer focus, and make sure that the customer has a great experience, he or she will return, and they will also tell other people about the experience."
- Technology: "In order to reach a global arena and communicate the message, you have to do it through technology. It's so important that our messaging is sound and solid and inviting and engaging and pulls them to do something—about coming to Philadelphia. And if you're coming for a meeting, it needs to gauge them as to what other activities there are when you're not in meetings or attending the convention or on the floor of a trade show…so it's not just about 'I worked the whole time I was there,' but 'I also had fun.' And on the leisure side of that, 'I went there for fun, but what a great place it would be to have a meeting or bring business here.' Multiple messaging that takes the singular person and gives them many reasons to come back and forth to Philadelphia."
- The Workforce: "Really, making sure that we're at the top of our game in serving that customer, because we are constantly training and retraining ourselves about how to take care of the guest. The other part of that is to get out into the community at large at the school level…to tell them how good the hospitality industry is, and why there are so many aspects of the hospitality industry out there that could be engaging for them, so they can enter into the workforce and we have backfill and we also have additional people that want to be here."
Among tourism infrastructure highlights, Ferguson mentioned that Philadelphia is reinventing itself as a service economy that specializes in the hospitality industry, and the convention center expansion will create new arts, culture and entertainment corridors such as a new pedestrian plaza on Cherry Street extending from the Pennsylvania Academy of Art and showcasing world-renowned cultural institutions such as the relocated Barnes Foundation, the Franklin Institute and the Rodin Museum.
"You have this whole cultural district at the doorstep of the northwest quadrant of the city because the building has expanded," Ferguson says. "What this creates is a walkable city once again, from the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, with the east anchor being the Pennsylvania Academy of Art."
