On March 24, Visit Indy, the Indianapolis convention and visitors bureau, found itself at the center of a storm of nationwide controversy when the state passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which human rights groups feared could legalize discrimination against the LGBT community. The law brought immediate condemnation from companies ranging from Apple to Eli Lilly & Co., as well as national media, musicians and entertainers, professional and collegiate sports leagues, and of course the meetings and convention industry.
Visit Indy suddenly found the reputation the city had spent decades building as a welcoming and inclusive destination in tatters. Boycotts were called, convention industry groups issued condemnations, two groups immediately cancelled conventions scheduled in Indianapolis, and more threatened to do so.
It wasn't really a surprise, says Leonard Hoops, president and CEO of Visit Indy, which had joined the city's mayor and chamber of commerce in fighting the RFRA in February. "We were recognized last year as USA Today's number one convention city, and have been using that as a key marketing message, and our state and local lawmakers all knew that," Hoops says. "So when organizations like ASAE and CIC and IAEE and others wrote letters of concern ... it's one thing for the statehouse to keep hearing from us, its another to hear it from people that this concerns directly."
Noting that Indianapolis has its own gay rights ordinance and is proud of its reputation for Hoosier Hospitality, Visit Indy didn't try to deflect criticism but joined in, posting an Indy Welcomes All campaign of the front page of its website. By April 2, the governor had signed an amended bill clarifying that discrimination against the LGBT community was not allowed. Hoops notes that of the 17 states with RFRA laws and no state-level LGBT protections, Indiana's version of the law went from having the weakest protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity to the strongest --using much the same language as the Indianapolis human rights ordinance. That said, Hoops recognizes that Indianapolis has some work to do to restore its reputation.
"You can't just hit 'undo' on significant negative coverage in both social media and traditional media," Hoops says. "Clearly we have to regain the trust of a lot of meeting decision makers. The thing I'm confident about is that, given the reality of who we are and what we deliver and the experiences that our customers have had -- in the long run that we will regain that trust. We know that there are certain groups that aren't going to immediately feel the same way about Indy that they did in the past, and there are groups who absolutely are excited about moving forward with working with us."
As for future sales calls, Hoops says, "We're not going to go in assuming we're not going to win business, and at the same time we're not going to assume there's no negative impact. We're going to go in expecting to be as competitive as we've always been, but knowing that this has had an impact and figuring out what we need to do, on a case-by-case basis, to earn trust and business of a particular group."
In the meantime, he adds that both groups that cancelled -- the national union AFSCME and a locally headquartered religious group, Disciples of Christ -- have rescinded their cancellations. That means that not one of the more than 700 groups the CVB had signed before the crisis has cancelled, he adds.