Dallas Hispanic Small Business By Sheryl Jeans - It's hard to ignore the power of Hispanics in the Dallas area: They account for about 40 percent of the population and about 60,000 Hispanic owned businesses. So it makes sense that the largest gathering of Hispanic business leaders in the country would be held here. "It seemed a natural choice," chamber chief executive Javier Palomarez said. "We are blessed that the Dallas economy and the Texas economy have continued to move forward."
Dallas ranks among the top U.S. cities for the most corporate headquarters, and North Texas is home to nearly half of the top 100 Hispanic-owned businesses, Palomarez said. That's also why Dallas would be a likely site for a regional office under consideration by the chamber.
"If we opened regional offices, I would like to open one in Dallas," he said. "I come from the corporate world, so for me satellite offices make a lot of sense." Palomarez expects a record 4,500 attendees at the convention, which is funded mainly through corporate sponsorships.
The Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates the meeting will generate $4 million in spending and other economic benefits to the city.
"It kind of puts front and center the economic clout Hispanics have and the strong undercurrent of entrepreneurship," said Edward T. Rincon, president of Rincon & Associates, a Dallas multicultural research services firm. "Nationally, Hispanics create businesses at about four times the national rate."
One of the convention's headliners is U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who will discuss policy issues with Palomarez and other Hispanic entrepreneurs and leaders Friday morning. More than a dozen CEOs from major consumer companies, including locally based 7-Eleven, Comerica Bank and Frito-Lay, will be at the convention.
Large U.S. companies are increasingly reaching out to Hispanic consumers, the fastest-growing minority group. The purchasing power of about 47 million U.S. Hispanics hit $951 billion in 2008 and is expected to reach about $1.4 trillion in 2013, according to the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth.
Rincon's research shows the 60,000 Hispanic-owned businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area had $22 billion in spending power in 2008.
Dallas business owner Nina Vaca, who is convention chairwoman and the chamber's incoming chairwoman, was instrumental in focusing this year's convention on a broader variety of topics for entrepreneurs, corporate Hispanic executives and local Hispanic chambers.
Ralph Castro, president of the 3-year-old Southeast Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, met with national chamber leaders and suggested the convention include workshops on management skills and funding sources for small-business owners.
"The way small businesses are doing business today is unlike how they've done it in the past," Castro said. "Many of our Latinos come from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Nicaragua and other places. They start a business from money they've saved, but they're lacking the skills to manage that business."
Still, some local Hispanic leaders think the $500 cost to attend the convention is too high for many small businesses given the tough economy. (Some individual events are priced as low as $70.)
Dallas is attracting more attention from Hispanic leaders as a place to do business. Dallas has hosted nearly 70 Hispanic meetings in the last five years vs. "hardly any" before that, said Phillip Jones, chief executive of the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau. The chamber national convention is the largest Hispanic meeting here, but the bureau has booked three others of similar size for each of the next three years, he said.
When Jones joined the bureau in 2003, one of his main goals was to target fast-growing emerging markets such as the Hispanic market. Since then, the group has hired a person to focus on the Hispanic market, launched latinodallas.com and retained a Hispanic marketing firm, he said.
In May, Miami-based Hispanic PR Blog held the first national Hispanic PR and Social Marketing Conference in Dallas. Conference creator Manny Ruiz said he chose Dallas because it is a top Hispanic and Fortune 500 market.
The U.S. Hispanic Chamber convention is "a great opportunity to showcase to Hispanic entrepreneurs and leaders from across the country all the great things going on in Dallas," Jones said. "We want to convey that Dallas is a great place to do business."