Letters: Convention Bureau
The Feb. 4 story on the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau’s reorganization is colored by innuendo. The story suggests that the restructuring plan was in some way a response to criticism from “some downtown hoteliers.” Yet one paragraph later, the article recognizes, correctly, that this process was in fact three years in the making.
As much as anything it was success, not, as the headline said, “visitor woes,” that “sparked” the bureau’s reorganization. Enormous growth in its members, funding sources and target audiences prompted the need to create greater alignment within an organization that had simply grown out of its old structure. The headline could not have been more misleading.
Later in the same story, Linda Griego is quoted on an unrelated matter regarding her belief that the bureau’s executives “feel the city has inferior convention facilities.” This statement confuses an important point. The city’s Convention Center is superior; the Bureau has always represented it as such.
It is the number of hotel rooms and their availability to the Convention Center that presents the challenge, especially compared to what Anaheim, San Diego and San Francisco offer. A sales pitch can only go so far in overcoming such a competitive disadvantage. In this very tough competitive environment, the bureau’s sales force has been remarkably focused. Lest we forget, last year saw more conventions coming to the convention center than ever before.
Alan Rothenberg
Chairman, Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau
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It’s unfortunate that our city has obstacles to attracting conventions, but that’s the reality. What is not reality is expecting executives and conventioneers to come to our city to see Olvera Street, Little Tokyo, or Koreatown. The LACVB brochure probably aimed (at other points of interest outside the city) correctly, if not politically-correctly. Let’s fix the issues, not stretch credibility to assign blame.
Pat Doherty
Hermosa Beach
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I was struck by the assertion that LACVB brochures have touted only the Westside and have ignored the core areas such as Olvera Street and Koreatown.
The LACVB has had a continuing relationship with the Friends of the Watts Towers Arts Center, and, with its assistance in developing marketing sponsors and media attention, contributed mightily to the successful reopening of the famed Watts Towers in 2001. This partnership has been invaluable and to suggest this neglect is wrong.
Rosalind Goddard
President, Friends of the Watts Towers Arts Center
Touting Transfer
I read your story “UCLA Stepping Up Tech Transfer Efforts” (Jan. 28) with great surprise. As president of Coatue Corp., a Massachusetts-based start-up microchip manufacturer, I have dealt with a number of university licensing and technology transfer offices, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Princeton University, Boston University and many others.
Of all of the schools that I have done business with, I found UCLA to be the most professional, efficient, and enjoyable to work with. Our primary contact, Emily Waldron, the assistant director of the UCLA licensing office, was extremely helpful in steering our patent licensing process through a number of potential potholes.
Most importantly, she exuded a “let’s get it done” approach.
Andrew T. Perlman
Cambridge, Mass.
