Meet Minneapolis CEO Melvin Tennant speaks at the organization's 2025 annual meeting. Source: Meet Minneapolis
In the wake of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
shootings of Minneapolis residents Alex Pretti on Jan. 24 and Renee Good on Jan.
7, Melvin Tennant, CEO of Meet Minneapolis, the city's convention and visitors
bureau, sat down with BTN VP of content Elizabeth West to discuss the impact on
the industry of the violence, ongoing media coverage and canceled meetings and
business travel to the city. While he talked about some numbers, he was more
focused on the effect of lost business on workers and the efforts it has taken
to keep winter-months business on the calendar.
Despite the political tensions, protests and violence
unfolding on the ground in the city, January has been a strong month for
meetings and events. The Minneapolis Convention Center has welcomed the Twin
Cities Auto Show, Minnesota School Boards Association meetings, the Minneapolis
Boat Show and the Totally Rad Vintage Fest earlier this month. Those events,
and a Minnesota Vikings game against the Green Bay Packers, drove strong hotel
occupancy in the city proper in the early weeks of January.
According to Meet Minneapolis' figures, which are sourced
from CoStar data firm STR, Minneapolis' Jan. 1-10 occupancy was 36.1 percent, 37 percent above the same period last year. The week ending Jan. 17, however,
realized occupancy at just 33 percent, which was down 11 percent from the same
week last year. In the most recent data available, for the week ending Jan. 24,
occupancy was down just over 3 percent.
There are many factors impacting hotel occupancy rates in
the city, not the least of which could be ICE presence itself filling rooms. As
happened when ICE agents were deployed to Los Angeles in June 2025, hotels have
been the site of protests in Minneapolis. At least one "No Sleep for ICE"
protest, which targets hotels that house ICE agents with late-night noise
campaigns, ended in armed agents releasing chemical irritants to disperse
reportedly belligerent protestors at a Hilton Home2 Suites in downtown
Minneapolis this week.
Media presence in the city is another new variable in the
mix, but it should be noted that the Meet Minneapolis numbers cover only 47
hotels in the city proper. Meet Minneapolis figures do not include the surrounding
area and, therefore, may not capture the entire picture. Metro-area numbers
provided to BTN by STR showed stronger occupancy rates.
It remains to be seen how the ongoing occupation, extreme
political rhetoric and Pretti's death at the hands of ICE agents will affect the
industry. Two business travel-related firms—World Travel Protection, a dedicated
risk management agency, and TravelPoolEurope, a European member-owned travel
management collective—each said their clients were asking for increased
guidance for cities where ICE presence is active or avoiding travel there. If
travel is required, according to the risk firm, some clients are opting for day
trips when possible, avoiding overnight stays.
Meetings sourcing technology firm Cvent provided BTN with
search and booking numbers for Minneapolis for the month of January. As Meet
Minneapolis officials discussed, events held in January were strong year over
year: proposal volume realized for events in January was up 11 percent over
last year, room nights up 9 percent and value was up 13 percent. Those numbers
capture a broader view than events associated with convention center. However,
meeting sourcing activities in the month of January that include Minneapolis
are mixed to slightly down. RFP volume is up 2 percent, but room nights
associated with those proposed events are down 2 percent, and the total value
of those RFPs is down 6 percent from proposal values in play last year. Still,
those numbers would not be out of range for normal year-over-year variations.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is on the board of Meet Minneapolis. His fiery responses to the Trump Administration and Department of Homeland Security have made news headlines across the nation.
With all that as a backdrop, the following is an edited
transcript of Tennant’s conversation with BTN.
BTN: Please tell me how you are doing and how Meet
Minneapolis, the board and staff are holding up in the aftermath of the ICE
killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good?
Melvin Tennant: Thank you for asking.
Obviously, everybody is emotional about things that have happened, particularly
whenever there's a loss of life. But we also have very dedicated, engaged
members of our team and business owners that represent our board. Many of them
are on the front line of life and, not necessarily of this particular
situation, but just in the business of serving people.
Probably the one thing that I've seen most prominently
is our team wanting to help friends and neighbors, our board members and
business owners. We have a board member who's a restaurateur [who has been out]
delivering egg rolls to one of the police department precincts. And that's just
one example of a bigger thing you don't want to forget. In the whole midst of
this sociopolitical issue, it's the human side. These are humans and everybody
is a human. It's difficult for a city like ours in the crosshairs of this
sociopolitical issue. We don't always have control over it, we don't know from
day to day how this going to play out.
BTN: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, among other city officials, is on
the Meet Minneapolis board of directors. Does the organization have its own
viewpoint of ICE's work and the protests that have flared in its wake?
Tennant: We're very much aligned with what the city has said, and that's
not meant to be a cop-out. … What I will say is that since we are dependent
upon small businesses and many of the workers, we know that this is impacting
our ability at times to provide the service to visitors that we'd like, but I
am so proud of the way that, in particular, our hospitality community stayed
focused on its keeping the promises Meet Minneapolis makes. Because of course,
you know, as a destination organization, we don't have hotel rooms to sell or
restaurant seats to fill, so we have to rely on those partners. So we've been
even more closely aligned with the businesses that we rely on to provide the
visitor experience.
Yesterday we had our
monthly hotel community meeting with directors of sales and general managers.
We provided them with the latest information as we know it. We, of course, work
with other business associations—our Chamber [of Commerce], our downtown council,
our regional economic development organizations are all doing things that
really focus on the human element, because that is what's at the core of this.
BTN: Meet Minneapolis has really keyed into the human element in its
10-year master plan that rolled out formally about a year ago. Among its six "big
ideas" were two that focused on civil rights and social justice
initiatives: 1) Embracing Minneapolis as a catalyst of the modern-day civil
rights movement and 2) Developing an iconic event that showcases Minneapolis'
commitment to social justice. It may be difficult to think about this now, but do
initiatives like that feel threatened in any way? Do they become more important
than ever?
Tennant: Our Destination
Master Plan was approved by our board … but it was a very thoughtful process
wherein more than 2,000 people in the community—customers, members of media,
businesses, a lot of individuals—funneled their thoughts and views into that
plan. Keep in mind it was on the heels of the George Floyd being murdered in
South Minneapolis on May 25, 2020. That was fresh on people's minds. But as an
organization, we have always looked at equity and community impact as a
priority. We have a department within our organization that focuses on that and
will continue to do so.
Now, I do need to say that's a
10-year plan, so we haven't gotten to everything yet. The two areas where we
are currently most excited about is presenting Minneapolis as the No. 1 city
for women's sports and, secondly, creating a world-class convention center
district. Those two have taken a lot of our attention over the last year, but
we continue to be a staunch advocate for equity, and that will not change. It's
not only the right thing to do, it's good for business. It serves our diverse
workforce and an increasingly diverse customer base.
BTN: You bring up George Floyd's
murder in 2020. That was clearly an inflection point for the city around which
there was a recovery period and a need to lean into your customers' concerns.
It seems that the media onslaught converging on this one slice of Minneapolis'
current experience is very tough and will be something that Meet Minneapolis
needs to overcome. How do you do that?
Tennant: We know there will
have to be some messaging to share what the true story is. As an example,
shortly after the George Floyd murder, we did a client event in Washington at
the National Museum of African American History and Culture with 100 clients.
We needed to remind them that the tragedy of George Floyd was not our whole
story. That's part of it now, you know, but it doesn't end there. And we
learned then that authenticity and transparency and telling customers what is
really happening is the key. We used the event at the museum in a very
effective way in my view.
We are again, now, in the position
of being in the evening news across the country in a highly politicized story, and
that's difficult to overcome. We are having individual, one-on-one
conversations with groups that legitimately have questions. We don't have the
resources, nor is it the time right now to launch the right messaging. But when
it is, we have to show people that what they see in the media is not all of
what's happening on the ground in our city. We'll do much of that on the
leisure side, but … for groups and conventions, we already have a number of familiarization
trips scheduled around key events. We'll probably need to reshape those, but
the opportunities are already in place to bring in key decision makers with
potential business for the city.
BTN: I have statements from two sizeable
organizations that indicate their clients are avoiding Minneapolis for business
travel. I also was told two entities have cancelled their events at the
convention center. What does that kind of attrition and avoidance mean for the
Minneapolis economy?
Tennant: I'll talk about a
few successes first. Right after the first of the year, the community in the
metro area hosted the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships. The events took
place at a venue in Minneapolis, but the championship games were at a venue in
St. Paul. But it was very successful. For the first time we moved our Twin
Cities Auto show to that early January time frame, and they're happy with those
results. We had the boat show and the Totally Rad Vintage Fest just this past
weekend. We also had the Minnesota School Board Association. And, sidebar, one of their big topics was how school districts [respond] when
ICE shows up. That contributed to attendance.
BTN: And the cancellations? The impact of those?
Tennant: Just to correct the information, we have had one event cancel
and we are in talks with the other piece of business; they have not canceled. In
normal years, we can host anywhere from 600 to 800 meetings, conferences and
conventions. We haven't pulled together the number for 2025 yet, but in 2024 we
had 760 total events, so that gives you a range. But January, as you can
imagine for Minnesota, can be a challenging month. Lots of cities are
scrambling for that business and it's very competitive out there. It's a time
when our hospitality workers don't necessarily have as many hours to work to
take care of their families as they typically would, so it's vitally important
for us to get that January business.
The total impact from
the one [canceled] event was, I believe, a little less than half a million
[dollars]. So certainly nothing to sneeze at and we are glad to have only one
cancellation so far. To focus, though, the impact of half a million-dollar
losses on workers is real, and there are people who didn't get work hours they
were expecting. That's very, very regrettable, and Meet Minneapolis is
responsible for keeping the promises we make.
BTN: When I think about ICE activities and the cities where they are
being deployed—Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Ore.—these are cities that the
current administration didn't win in the election. While I don't think anyone
is targeting the meetings and events industry, specifically, the by-product of
these government activities does impact local economies, the ability to serve
tourists and groups and how meeting planners may choose to source destinations
for their events. So, in effect, deploying ICE may have the effect of steering
meetings and event business away from cities like yours. You may or may not
agree, but talk to me about the potential for that and what it could mean.
Tennant: Yeah. I'll just say that, like I mentioned earlier, the fact
that we're in the crosshairs of this sociopolitical issue is certainly
something we didn't ask for but it's a reality. We talk amongst destination
marketing executives a lot about "what ifs" a lot. "What if"
a certain occurrence happens in your city? We just don't know. We've seen
travel politicized very, very heavily the last 10 to 15 years. We've seen how
certain resort destinations might have been vilified or certain organizations
calling for people not to go to certain cities or states because of a political
stance on some issue. It's always out there.
Among destination
executives, we know we could be next. We're all vulnerable because it's easy to
politicize travel and travel is easily impacted by a situation like this and I
don't wish it on anyone else. But I can't even tell you the number of notes of
support I've gotten from my colleagues across the country. And I don't think
anybody tries to profit from any issue that one particular city is having.
BTN: How are you communicating more generally and providing extra
information to planners and event organizers who are looking to bring business
to Minneapolis right now?
Tennant: [Our communications team] updates our FAQs multiple times daily
and that’s the best source of information. But we have a
tremendous sales team that has great relationships with their clients and there are individual conversations taking place. We
have a very, very close working relationship with our city government from
communications to logistics for events. Even though we are not a city
department, we are very plugged in and have dialogue all the time. Our
convention center is a city department and we speak to the director at least
daily. They rely on us for a lot of information and market intelligence. As far
as policy decisions made, we’re not involved, but anything that supports that
from communications to logistics, we are deeply involved.