Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board: Expanding Diverse Membership with Intention and Inclusion

Social Impact Framework: Supplier Diversity

What was the issue you were trying to address?  

Increasing access to the economic benefits of tourism among small and diverse-owned businesses from historically disadvantaged communities in Los Angeles.  

What were the stated objectives of this initiative?  

1. To identify the most effective channels to reach small, diverse-owned businesses across the region – particularly those from historically disadvantaged neighborhoods.  
2. To create awareness of how tourism could assist these small businesses in growing their revenues and remove barriers to entry by waiving LA Tourism Membership dues for two years.  
3. To provide "tourism readiness" training regarding the resources that LA Tourism provides for its members, such as: How to become part of the supply chain for meetings and events, how to work with the travel trade and media, and how to network with other LA Tourism Member organizations to create new business opportunities. 

What were the specific metrics you used to measure the success of your efforts?

Year one success metrics included:  

1. Reaching the broadest number of prospective members. Since sourcing through the city’s official procurement portal didn’t encompass the full range of small, diverse-owned businesses in the region, we sought to identify alternative sourcing channels to reach them.
2. The number of new small, diverse-owned businesses that signed up as LA Tourism Members upon being contacted.

For the second year of the program, we are adding metrics focused on direct engagement with these businesses, including participation in Tourism Readiness training, outreach from our Member Services team, participation in LA Tourism events to increase exposure for these companies, and year-over-year increases in tourism-related business sales. 

What were the specific outcomes and results of your efforts?  

We welcomed over 140 new, diverse-owned small businesses as Los Angeles Tourism Members, representing a 16% increase in our total Membership. In addition to direct outreach from our Membership team, we partnered with the Cultural Heritage Economic Alliance to implement a formal "tourism readiness" program, with more than 50 new members participating in the initial training, which will be repeated multiple times during 2025.  

In addition, we have regularly incorporated these new members into LA Tourism’s promotional efforts and events, driving both incremental revenues and new sales opportunities for these companies through networking with other LA Tourism Members who have need of their products and services. 

Is there any other information you'd like to share, including any best practices or key lessons learned?  

Our initial approach was to search the city's official database for certified MBEs as potential prospects for Membership. Surprisingly, we found a much smaller group of diverse-owned businesses than we had anticipated. A key learning from our Community Advisory Board was that many diverse-owned businesses don't pursue MBE certification due to a legacy belief that they are unlikely to win contracts through a competitive bidding process, even though the city has made significant strides in this area.  

To address this issue, we empowered our Community Advisory Board to nominate local small, diverse-owned businesses for one year of complimentary LA Tourism Membership, and partnered with the Business Connect program, which the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission created to enable these businesses to become official suppliers for major events like the Super Bowl. This proved to be a much more effective way of reaching prospective Members, although there is still significant work ahead to ensure that we are maximizing opportunities for these companies to fully leverage the economic power of our industry.