‘A loss for the hospitality industry’: Annual Cerner convention will leave Kansas City
A conference organized through healthcare IT company Cerner that has long been held in Kansas City, bringing thousands of visitors annually and estimated to be worth about $18 million in local economic impact, is moving to Las Vegas.
Visit KC, the city’s visitors and convention bureau, was notified Thursday that the large-scale event — formerly known as the Cerner Health Conference — would no longer be held locally. The conference will instead be consolidated with the annual Oracle World Cloud Conference in Las Vegas beginning in 2023.
“While we are disappointed in this decision, we understand the economics of scaling the event within the existing framework of the Oracle World Cloud Conference footprint in Las Vegas,” Nathan Hermiston, senior vice president of convention sales and services with Visit KC, said in a statement Thursday.
“We have celebrated our partnership with Cerner (now Oracle Cerner) and the CHC for many years in Kansas City and while this unquestionably creates a loss for the hospitality industry in Kansas City, Visit KC looks forward to pursuing and welcoming new convention opportunities to Kansas City to take its place.”
According to VisitKC, past events have attracted around 14,000 attendees during the annual conference held in fall. It has consistently been in Kansas City since 2007. Many of the benefits to the conference were felt in the hospitality and entertainment industry as the company reserved event space and visitors patronized local hotels and restaurants.
Kansas City-based Cerner was acquired by Austin-based Oracle through a $23 billion deal that was finalized in June to form Oracle Cerner. Since the merger, Oracle Cerner has announced changes to its footprint in Kansas City, including by vacating some of its local office real estate. Many employees transitioned to working virtually during the pandemic and the company announced a new hybrid work model in summer 2021.
Though mergers typically result in job cuts, Oracle has pledged to grow its presence of jobs in Kansas City, saying the region will continue to serve as a critical hub of its workforce.
This story was originally published December 15, 2022 at 7:53 PM.
