Already facing criticism for the city's declining convention business, the Greater Cincinnati Convention & Visitors Bureau will release a report today showing conventions spent less and brought fewer people in 2000 than the year before.

        Convention spending dropped to $189.8 million from $229.1 million in 1999, and convention attendance fell by 45,474, to 220,708. The lower figures helped contribute to the convention center's first operating loss of $200,000.

        Bureau President Mike Wilson expects deals that his staff closed in 2000 will be an economic boom in future years.

        “We are going to pursue everything and anything we can,” Mr. Wilson said. Goals “are definitely stretches, but I think it's a doable plan.”

        The bureau's board has voted to hire a consultant to perform an organizational review of Greater Cincinnati's chief tourism agency.

        Hamilton County commissioners have been reluctant to voice support for the proposed $335 million expansion of the city-owned Albert B. Sabin Cincinnati Convention Center. Meanwhile, lucrative trade and business groups have left Cincinnati for competing Midwest cities because the downtown convention center isn't large enough.

        Despite the challenges, the bureau's report shows it helped increase hotel room nights — one room occupied one night — to 241,000 from 238,575 in 1999. The bureau says conventions and tourists in 2000 contributed $3.4 billion to Greater Cincinnati's economy in 2000, helping sustain 81,000 jobs.

        Bureau staff booked 265 conventions in 2000 versus 239 in 1999.

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