August 12, 2024 • 10 mins
Imagine taking the helm of a nonprofit destination marketing organization in the midst of a global pandemic. That's exactly what Gregg Caren did when he became President and CEO of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau in June 2020. With a sharp focus on strategic partnerships and a deep commitment to Philadelphia's growth, Gregg has been instrumental in positioning the city as a top destination for meetings, conventions, sporting events, and international travelers. In collaboration with the Pennsylvania Convention Center, national industry associations, and the City of Philadelphia, Gregg works tirelessly to strengthen the city’s tourism and hospitality sectors.
With over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Gregg has held various senior leadership roles, including 20 years with ASM Global and SMG. His career has also seen him in top positions at entertainment venues in Atlantic City and at the Valley Forge Convention Center/Sheraton Valley Forge, beginning his journey with Marriott Hotels and Resorts.
As Philadelphia prepares to host major events like the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship, the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and America 250, Gregg is leading the charge, ensuring the city’s vibrant culture and economic vitality shine on the global stage.
Website and Social Media:
With over 30 years in the hospitality industry, Gregg has held various senior leadership roles, including 20 years with ASM Global and SMG. His career has also seen him in top positions at entertainment venues in Atlantic City and at the Valley Forge Convention Center/Sheraton Valley Forge, beginning his journey with Marriott Hotels and Resorts.
As Philadelphia prepares to host major events like the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship, the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and America 250, Gregg is leading the charge, ensuring the city’s vibrant culture and economic vitality shine on the global stage.
Website and Social Media:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm the rain ballot moraw with CEOs you should know,
brought to you by Comcast Business.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi, it's Greg Karen.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
I'm the President and CEO of the Philadelphia Convention and
Visitors Bureau.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Tell us about the mission of the Philadelphia Convention and
Visitors Bureau.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
We're kind of a highly specialized economic development agency. Formerly,
what we're referred to is we are the official tourism
promotion agency for the city of Philadelphia globally, and we're
also the official sales and marketing arm for our convention center,
the beautiful building in the middle of town that is
actually owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. But the way
I like to refer to what I do is the
way I was trained years ago, is to talk about
(00:36):
what's the end result of what we do. And so
if I fast forward to the end result. To really
explain what we do, I ask people to think about
what it's like when they are walking in this middle
of center city and Wressemania fans are running up and
down the streets, or during the Army Navy game, when
the entire city feels like a campus of West Point
or the Naval Academy, and even more simply people don't
notice it until we talk about it, but just that
(00:58):
feeling when you see people walking up and down Market
and Chestnut in the streets of Philadelphia, wearing hangtags and
name tags with whatever association they happen to be with.
All those things really are the end result of what
we do in our organization and really as a major
driver of our economy in Philadelphia and in Southeast PA.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
What you do is to encourage folks to come to
Philadelphia to experience the richness and the beauty of this
wonderful city which I love so much. And I wonder
if you can just speak to what is it about
Philadelphia that makes it such a special destination for people?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
You know, I usually go down two or three different paths.
I mean, one is just a pure logistical one. That's
the easy first answer. Our centrality on the Northeast card
and really the densest part of our nation, and people
don't don't know. If everybody knows American Airlines, we're their
largest transatlantic hub for flights for American Airlines out of
the US. All those things make us a really perfect
(01:52):
location just geographically when you think about the highways and
the rail lines, of Amtrak and our airport.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
All those things come together nicely.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Then you add some other logistics of some fourteen thousand
hotel rooms and a world class convention center and start
layering in all the other stuff that we start to
think about ourselves as residents and people in the area,
and that is the richness of our culture, diversity, history,
the gastronomic scene. All those things that make this such
a wonderful place to work make it an extremely attractive destination,
(02:19):
whether you're doing a national medical convention or you're one
of the Divine Nine looking to have your annual meeting here.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
We have such a rich history.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
As you know, we have the first two historically black
college and universities in the country right here in Philadelphia,
and that just gives us all of that such a
great backdrop, so that when people come here, they truly
do feel the richness and diversity of our city, whether
they're here from a professional event, a fraternal event, a
sporting event. The backdrop of the city and the richest
of the city all make it an extraordinary value proposition
(02:48):
for planners of these big events.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
As a Philadelphia booster, what is one thing that you
think that anyone visiting Philadelphia absolutely must ex experience Wow.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I think that anybody coming to Philadelphia must experience the
people of Philadelphia itself. And maybe it's a cheap answer
because it's too hard for me to go to the
food scene or the art scene and the art museum
and an old city.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I think what is most eye opening.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Though, for people who visit us for the first time,
is that blend of culture that we represent, right, that
great history that we've got, not just American history and
the seat of Him, of westering democracy and all those
other wonderful things that just make this the most special
place on the planet, especially as we encroach on twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
But it is the people of Philadelphia, you know, the
way you know.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I listened to another one of your interviews and a
dear friend of mine, Sasha, who runs the Art museum,
was talking about going to donors fundraisers and talking about
how they'll be talking about art in this elite way.
But there's a Phillies game playing in the background, and
she never experienced that in.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Any other places.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And I think that is the beauty of our city,
is that the people that live, work and visit us
are looking for all of that. You know, there are
so many places you can go and find just great
arts or great food or great but there is just
so much of everything here and the way it sort
of represents itself through the people of Philadelphia. Yeah, we're gritty,
and we can be raw, and we could be blunt,
(04:15):
and you know, our sports fans can shant. Nobody likes
us and we don't care. But at the end of
the day, it all comes together to form one of
the most special cities in North America and maybe in
the world.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Well, you've accomplished a lot in your career and now
you here are the CEO of the Philadelphia Convention and
Visitors Bureau, and I wonder if you can talk about
some lessons you learned along the way that helped you
get to where you are today.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Great question.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
I think about that a lot, And I also think
about a lot of the fact that I may be
in a minority of people who actually have ended up
at what's closer to the talent in my career than
the beginning in the same place that I started.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Even academically.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I actually went to Penn State University for their hotel
restaurant management program and pretty much everything that I've done
since that graduation in the early nineteen eighties has really
been a component of that. And if you look at
what the Convention and Visitors Bureau is meant to do,
it's to promote everything that I just spoke about about
what's special about the city. But at the end of
the day, it starts with our convention center, our sports complex,
(05:14):
and our hotels and restaurants, the true venues that will
host anywhere from one thousand to fifty thousand people coming
to visit us and the last stop on my career.
Prior to taking this role, just four years ago, at
the front end of the pandemic, was working for the
company that actually manages our convention center here in Philadelphia.
It's a global company. We had a portfolio of three
(05:35):
hundred and fifty venues of all types all over the world,
and I think the most beautiful part for me was
I had a portfolio of about one hundred convention centers
from San Francisco to Chicago, from Fort Lauderdale to Long
Beach to Shenzhend, China, to Montego Bay, Jamaica, as well
as our venue right here in Philadelphia. But this has
been my home for the last thirty years, and what
(05:56):
I was able to see by having access to Convention
Center in all these other destinations and their tourism organizations,
and their mayors and their city councils, and they're all
the things that make up sort of the ecosystem of
our world. Here in Philadelphia, I was really able to
see the best and the worst of how public and
private sectors work together, how nonprofits actually come together or don't.
(06:19):
And in every city I would go to, I would
meet mayors and city council members, and I would meet
and I use the word lovingly, the word bureaucrats, people
that are truly career civil servants.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And wear them as a badge of honor, and.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Truly see people that use words like civic pride and
civic responsibility. And I always admired that in all those people.
But at the end of the day, I was working
for a massive for profit corporation with a couple of
private equity flips and a merger that left that.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Said about, you know, two billion dollar company.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
When I left the company sixty five thousand employees around
the world, and I found myself uniquely in the position
of thinking about my own civic pride and my own
civic responsibility.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
And although this is my adopted home.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
I've lived longer than anywhere else, and I truly love
this city and I love the people of it, and
I found myself using those words. It was really the
reason I took the position was the world had just
closed down with the pandemic literally as start of my.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Job in June of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
So a smarter person would have probably run back to
is his for profit company and said, you know, let
me just stay a little bit safer than this new world.
But I truly did feel the responsibility of the eighty
thousand or so people that live and work in our city,
in our industry. That's about how many people that are
Philadelphians that work in tourism and hospitality and the related businesses.
(07:34):
And I took it as my own personal obligation, along
with our elected leaders and our private sector partners or hoteliers,
to do everything I could to help get people back
to work and make us a thriving tourism and convention
and big event destination once again. And that's been the
last four years, and now we're trying to be a
little bit more forward thinking and more strategic than the
survival that we were really difficult, say three or four
(07:55):
years ago.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Right, So my second to the last question is elevator pitch.
You know, you're talking to some fella and some lady
in the Midwest and their family, and why would they
want to come to Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
It is that unique combination of everything I said before.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It is you may have heard, we actually were just
rated for the second time in a row as the
most walkable city in America. And when I think about
all these other cities, cities that I have visited, whether
it was for work or personally, and it's easy to
get lost in very, very urban settings. But when you
think about the fact that if you were to stop
(08:32):
at the start of the steps of the Art Museum,
whether you're inside looking at the artwork or outside, you know,
taking a rocky pose at the top of the steps
and walk straight across our center city, over to Old
City and depends landing. It's a one hour walk across
the entire sort of from river to river as we say,
river to river and Pine divine as sort of how
we talk about it. But then when you think about
starting to meander through one of the most historic neighborhoods
(08:54):
in the country, meandering through one of the most historic
China towns in the country, through the most historic square
mile in a country. It's those things that when you
add them together, and along with the access and the
ease of getting in and out of Philadelphia, that whether
it's for a convention delegate or a tourist coming here
from the Midwest or from China, I think we just
(09:16):
have an extraordinary story to tell. We're also a more
affordable destination than a lot of other Northeast sister cities.
So you add this all together, it is just such
a great whether you're a family or a couple or
a solo. We see a lot of people that come
here for one reason and ending up coming back for another.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I'm sold. If people want more information about the Pennsylvania
Convention and Visitors Bureau, where do they go?
Speaker 3 (09:38):
So our website is DISCOVERPHL dot com. So just like
the abbreviation for our airport, DISCOVERPHL dot.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Com CEOs you should know brought to you by Comcast Business,
offering the complete connectivity solution, cybersecurity, Internet and mobile all
from one provider, Comcast Business, powering possibilities yeo
I'm the rain ballot moraw with CEOs you should know,
brought to you by Comcast Business.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi, it's Greg Karen.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
I'm the President and CEO of the Philadelphia Convention and
Visitors Bureau.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Tell us about the mission of the Philadelphia Convention and
Visitors Bureau.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
We're kind of a highly specialized economic development agency. Formerly,
what we're referred to is we are the official tourism
promotion agency for the city of Philadelphia globally, and we're
also the official sales and marketing arm for our convention center,
the beautiful building in the middle of town that is
actually owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. But the way
I like to refer to what I do is the
way I was trained years ago, is to talk about
(00:36):
what's the end result of what we do. And so
if I fast forward to the end result. To really
explain what we do, I ask people to think about
what it's like when they are walking in this middle
of center city and Wressemania fans are running up and
down the streets, or during the Army Navy game, when
the entire city feels like a campus of West Point
or the Naval Academy, and even more simply people don't
notice it until we talk about it, but just that
(00:58):
feeling when you see people walking up and down Market
and Chestnut in the streets of Philadelphia, wearing hangtags and
name tags with whatever association they happen to be with.
All those things really are the end result of what
we do in our organization and really as a major
driver of our economy in Philadelphia and in Southeast PA.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
What you do is to encourage folks to come to
Philadelphia to experience the richness and the beauty of this
wonderful city which I love so much. And I wonder
if you can just speak to what is it about
Philadelphia that makes it such a special destination for people?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
You know, I usually go down two or three different paths.
I mean, one is just a pure logistical one. That's
the easy first answer. Our centrality on the Northeast card
and really the densest part of our nation, and people
don't don't know. If everybody knows American Airlines, we're their
largest transatlantic hub for flights for American Airlines out of
the US. All those things make us a really perfect
(01:52):
location just geographically when you think about the highways and
the rail lines, of Amtrak and our airport.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
All those things come together nicely.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Then you add some other logistics of some fourteen thousand
hotel rooms and a world class convention center and start
layering in all the other stuff that we start to
think about ourselves as residents and people in the area,
and that is the richness of our culture, diversity, history,
the gastronomic scene. All those things that make this such
a wonderful place to work make it an extremely attractive destination,
(02:19):
whether you're doing a national medical convention or you're one
of the Divine Nine looking to have your annual meeting here.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
We have such a rich history.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
As you know, we have the first two historically black
college and universities in the country right here in Philadelphia,
and that just gives us all of that such a
great backdrop, so that when people come here, they truly
do feel the richness and diversity of our city, whether
they're here from a professional event, a fraternal event, a
sporting event. The backdrop of the city and the richest
of the city all make it an extraordinary value proposition
(02:48):
for planners of these big events.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
As a Philadelphia booster, what is one thing that you
think that anyone visiting Philadelphia absolutely must ex experience Wow.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I think that anybody coming to Philadelphia must experience the
people of Philadelphia itself. And maybe it's a cheap answer
because it's too hard for me to go to the
food scene or the art scene and the art museum
and an old city.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I think what is most eye opening.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Though, for people who visit us for the first time,
is that blend of culture that we represent, right, that
great history that we've got, not just American history and
the seat of Him, of westering democracy and all those
other wonderful things that just make this the most special
place on the planet, especially as we encroach on twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
But it is the people of Philadelphia, you know, the
way you know.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I listened to another one of your interviews and a
dear friend of mine, Sasha, who runs the Art museum,
was talking about going to donors fundraisers and talking about
how they'll be talking about art in this elite way.
But there's a Phillies game playing in the background, and
she never experienced that in.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Any other places.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And I think that is the beauty of our city,
is that the people that live, work and visit us
are looking for all of that. You know, there are
so many places you can go and find just great
arts or great food or great but there is just
so much of everything here and the way it sort
of represents itself through the people of Philadelphia. Yeah, we're gritty,
and we can be raw, and we could be blunt,
(04:15):
and you know, our sports fans can shant. Nobody likes
us and we don't care. But at the end of
the day, it all comes together to form one of
the most special cities in North America and maybe in
the world.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Well, you've accomplished a lot in your career and now
you here are the CEO of the Philadelphia Convention and
Visitors Bureau, and I wonder if you can talk about
some lessons you learned along the way that helped you
get to where you are today.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Great question.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
I think about that a lot, And I also think
about a lot of the fact that I may be
in a minority of people who actually have ended up
at what's closer to the talent in my career than
the beginning in the same place that I started.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Even academically.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I actually went to Penn State University for their hotel
restaurant management program and pretty much everything that I've done
since that graduation in the early nineteen eighties has really
been a component of that. And if you look at
what the Convention and Visitors Bureau is meant to do,
it's to promote everything that I just spoke about about
what's special about the city. But at the end of
the day, it starts with our convention center, our sports complex,
(05:14):
and our hotels and restaurants, the true venues that will
host anywhere from one thousand to fifty thousand people coming
to visit us and the last stop on my career.
Prior to taking this role, just four years ago, at
the front end of the pandemic, was working for the
company that actually manages our convention center here in Philadelphia.
It's a global company. We had a portfolio of three
(05:35):
hundred and fifty venues of all types all over the world,
and I think the most beautiful part for me was
I had a portfolio of about one hundred convention centers
from San Francisco to Chicago, from Fort Lauderdale to Long
Beach to Shenzhend, China, to Montego Bay, Jamaica, as well
as our venue right here in Philadelphia. But this has
been my home for the last thirty years, and what
(05:56):
I was able to see by having access to Convention
Center in all these other destinations and their tourism organizations,
and their mayors and their city councils, and they're all
the things that make up sort of the ecosystem of
our world. Here in Philadelphia, I was really able to
see the best and the worst of how public and
private sectors work together, how nonprofits actually come together or don't.
(06:19):
And in every city I would go to, I would
meet mayors and city council members, and I would meet
and I use the word lovingly, the word bureaucrats, people
that are truly career civil servants.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And wear them as a badge of honor, and.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Truly see people that use words like civic pride and
civic responsibility. And I always admired that in all those people.
But at the end of the day, I was working
for a massive for profit corporation with a couple of
private equity flips and a merger that left that.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Said about, you know, two billion dollar company.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
When I left the company sixty five thousand employees around
the world, and I found myself uniquely in the position
of thinking about my own civic pride and my own
civic responsibility.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
And although this is my adopted home.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
I've lived longer than anywhere else, and I truly love
this city and I love the people of it, and
I found myself using those words. It was really the
reason I took the position was the world had just
closed down with the pandemic literally as start of my.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Job in June of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
So a smarter person would have probably run back to
is his for profit company and said, you know, let
me just stay a little bit safer than this new world.
But I truly did feel the responsibility of the eighty
thousand or so people that live and work in our city,
in our industry. That's about how many people that are
Philadelphians that work in tourism and hospitality and the related businesses.
(07:34):
And I took it as my own personal obligation, along
with our elected leaders and our private sector partners or hoteliers,
to do everything I could to help get people back
to work and make us a thriving tourism and convention
and big event destination once again. And that's been the
last four years, and now we're trying to be a
little bit more forward thinking and more strategic than the
survival that we were really difficult, say three or four
(07:55):
years ago.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Right, So my second to the last question is elevator pitch.
You know, you're talking to some fella and some lady
in the Midwest and their family, and why would they
want to come to Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
It is that unique combination of everything I said before.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It is you may have heard, we actually were just
rated for the second time in a row as the
most walkable city in America. And when I think about
all these other cities, cities that I have visited, whether
it was for work or personally, and it's easy to
get lost in very, very urban settings. But when you
think about the fact that if you were to stop
(08:32):
at the start of the steps of the Art Museum,
whether you're inside looking at the artwork or outside, you know,
taking a rocky pose at the top of the steps
and walk straight across our center city, over to Old
City and depends landing. It's a one hour walk across
the entire sort of from river to river as we say,
river to river and Pine divine as sort of how
we talk about it. But then when you think about
starting to meander through one of the most historic neighborhoods
(08:54):
in the country, meandering through one of the most historic
China towns in the country, through the most historic square
mile in a country. It's those things that when you
add them together, and along with the access and the
ease of getting in and out of Philadelphia, that whether
it's for a convention delegate or a tourist coming here
from the Midwest or from China, I think we just
(09:16):
have an extraordinary story to tell. We're also a more
affordable destination than a lot of other Northeast sister cities.
So you add this all together, it is just such
a great whether you're a family or a couple or
a solo. We see a lot of people that come
here for one reason and ending up coming back for another.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I'm sold. If people want more information about the Pennsylvania
Convention and Visitors Bureau, where do they go?
Speaker 3 (09:38):
So our website is DISCOVERPHL dot com. So just like
the abbreviation for our airport, DISCOVERPHL dot.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Com CEOs you should know brought to you by Comcast Business,
offering the complete connectivity solution, cybersecurity, Internet and mobile all
from one provider, Comcast Business, powering possibilities yeo
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