Countdown on for big 2015 tourism conference in Orlando

Harry Potter keeps on eye on business from the Universal Orlando display at the U.S. Travel Association’s International Pow Wow 2010 at the Orange County Convention Center.

In about a year, Orlando will host the most important conference in the travel and tourism industry, when the IPW annual meeting rolls into the Orange County Convention Center.

For tourism and travel officials, hosting IPW — formerly known as International Pow Wow — is a little like having the NBA All-Star game or Super Bowl come to town.

The event — to be held from May 30 to June 3, 2015 — will likely attract more than 6,000 tourism industry representatives, many of them travel package buyers and tour organizers.

When the conference ends, local officials hope they’ll go home and regale potential clients with tales of Central Florida’s sunny weather and world-class attractions. The convention center often hosts bigger events, but few are more significant.

“It’s not so much the size of the conference as who the delegates represent,” said George Aguel, president and CEO of Visit Orlando, the region’s tourism marketing agency. “They’re tour operators and travel industry media from all over the world. And they’re all in one spot.”

Visit Orlando, which works with the U.S. Travel Association on the show, recently began working to create a host committee made up of representatives from the local travel and tourism industry. Visit Orlando, which gets about 60 percent of its budget from the tourist-development tax, is still developing a budget for the project.

Convention center officials say they expect attendance to exceed the 5,100 people who came in 2010 — the last time Orlando hosted the event. The conference’s estimated economic benefit — in the short term — is about $11.8 million.

But the real impact of IPW — held this year in Chicago — is likely to ripple through the local economy for two or three years, as tour operators and travel agents book future trips based on what they experienced at the conference.

Early this year, the U.S. Travel Association estimated that Washington, D.C., the 2017 host city, will see an additional 1 million visitors in the three years following the event. Tourism spending over that time is projected to rise by $1.6 billion.

The association said Las Vegas, which hosted IPW in 2013, would book $350 million in future travel in the years after the event. Show organizers say Orlando will see a similar benefit.

“We get to showcase what we have to travel agents and tour organizers — anyone with anything to do with bringing tourists here,” said Kathie Canning, the convention center’s executive director. “You can’t buy that kind of exposure.”

While they’re here, attendees will be treated like VIPs.

Aguel said that typically, local theme parks offer special after-hours events, open only to IPW delegates. Visit Orlando, said spokesman Brian Martin, will likely organize shopping trips — to showcase major outlets —and tours to highlight Central Florida’s natural beauty.

And, there will be parties, Martin said — lots of them.

Still, he said, the conference is fundamentally about business.

Countdown on for big 2015 tourism conference in Orlando