Georgia

Meeting planners are enjoying the fruits of the Peach State’s labor, with bold new attractions and impressive new hotels and group facilities gracing the landscape from the Appalachians to Atlanta and the Atlantic.

In light of all the additions, Georgia has stepped up promotional initiatives aimed at repositioning the state as one of the most multifaceted destinations in the South. “Put Your Dreams in Motion” is the umbrella tagline of Georgia’s latest rebranding effort, and a recently unveiled ad campaign focuses on historic districts and cultural and Civil War sites spanning five travel regions of Georgia.


Metro Atlanta

Undergoing its largest amount of destination development to date, Georgia’s capital and biggest city has unveiled its own rebranding campaign, with new banners and signs carrying the tagline, “Every Day Is an Opening Day.”

“We are focusing on strengthening our position as a regional family getaway. We have quite a story to tell,” says Mark Vaughan, executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer at the Atlanta CVB. “There is now more reason than ever for conventioneers to come a day early, stay a day late, or bring their families.”

The story begins in November 2005 with the opening of the $200 million Georgia Aquarium, which is billed as the world’s largest and has put the city on the map from a leisure standpoint, according to Vaughan. During the same month, the city debuted a $130 million addition to Midtown’s High Museum of Art.

The aquarium, with venue space that includes a 16,400-square-foot ballroom, projected 2.4 million visitors for its first year; it lured 3.5 million. A $13 million expansion is under way and scheduled for completion in October. The project will include a new 7,000-square-foot prefunction area for its 16,400-square-foot ballroom and additional meeting rooms.

Opening May 24 and also featuring off-site event space is a new World of Coca-Cola on 20 acres adjacent to the aquarium. The new facility tracing the drink’s history will be double the size of the existing attraction and feature 35,000 square feet of exhibit space and four acres of outdoor space.

Projects like the aquarium and the World of Coca Cola are increasing the appeal of the convention district, which includes the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC), with 3.9 million square feet of space; the CNN Center and adjacent Omni hotel; and the 21-acre Centennial Olympic Park. Flanking the district to the south is the Georgia Dome and Philips Arena, and to the east is downtown, with 16,000 hotel rooms.

Meanwhile, Vaughan says boutique hotels had long been “a missing link” in the city’s hotel scene, but a number of recent debuts have filled the void, while other new hotels are also gracing the city and properties throughout town are renovating.

The boutique chapter began with the conversion of two historic buildings, resulting in Midtown’s Hotel Indigo, unveiled in fall 2004, followed by the opening last year of the Glenn Hotel, located close to the convention district. Last summer, the Twelve Hotel, a boutique property featuring a 5,000-square-foot ballroom, opened in Midtown’s new Atlantic Station residential and entertainment district, built on a steel mill site. The Twelve Centennial Park is scheduled to open in September.

Also slated to debut this year are the Ellis Hotel (a renovated historic hotel) in September and the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown, part of a mixed-use development, in December.

In 2008, Starwood will unveil two W properties: the W Midtown (transformed from the Sheraton Midtown Atlanta at Colony Square) and the W Downtown, with 10,000 square feet of meeting space and the city’s first heliport-topped hotel.

Among the other properties slated to open in 2008 is the St. Regis Buckhead, which will be part of a mixed-use project and feature a 9,200-square-foot ballroom.

Meanwhile, properties applying upgrades include the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, which is undergoing a $140 million renovation and expansion.

North of downtown, Midtown is home to the Woodruff Arts Center, with institutions such as the Alliance Theater and the expanded High Museum of Art. The center expects to break ground next year on the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s new $300 million home.

The High’s unprecedented Louvre Atlanta exhibition, launched last October, runs through 2009. For the first year, the central exhibit features works from the Louvre in Paris assembled during the reigns of Kings Louis XIV and Louis XVI.

Midtown is also the site of Georgia Tech’s Technology Square, completed in October 2003. The area has two IACC-certified meeting facilities: the 252-room Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center, with 21,000 square feet of meeting space, and the Georgia Tech Global Learning and Conference Center, with 32,000 square feet of function space.

Other IACC-certified properties in the Midtown area include the Georgian Terrace Hotel and the Southern Conference Center at Sheraton Midtown, while to the east is Emory Conference Center Hotel at Emory University.

If Midtown is the cultural hub, Buckhead, farther north, presents Atlanta’s fashionable side. The area features upscale malls such as Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza, and hotels, totaling 5,000 rooms, that include a Ritz-Carlton, a JW Marriott, a Westin, and an InterContinental.

Buckhead is also home to the Atlanta History Center, which last July opened another attraction: the $10 million Centennial Olympics Games Museum.

Ten miles south of downtown and close to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is the state’s second-largest convention center: the 3-year-old, 400,000-square-foot Georgia International Convention Center (GICC).

Gateway Center, a recently announced 1.1 million-square-foot, mixed-use project, will include a 400-room GICC headquarters hotel and a 150-room suite hotel, both expected to open by early 2009.

In addition, late next year an automated people mover will debut, transporting visitors from the airport to a new airport car rental headquarters and GICC’s front door.

“The people mover and hotels will put the GICC in a class by itself,” says Mercedes Miller, the GICC’s assistant executive director. “We’ll be able to attract larger, multiday events, and with no transportation to coordinate, it will be an event planner’s dream.”

With the opening last year of a fifth runway at the airport, “it is even easier to catch a flight and host an event at the GICC,” Miller adds.

Farther south, Peachtree City offers meetings-ready properties such as Wyndham Peachtree Conference Center and Aberdeen Woods Conference Center.

Northwest of downtown, Cobb County has its seat in historic downtown Marietta, which is within walking distance of the 200-room Marietta Conference Center and Resort, with more than 20,000 square feet of IACC-certified meeting space.

Among the county’s attractions are the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area and Six Flags over Georgia, which last year unveiled Goliath, promoted as the Southeast’s largest and tallest rollercoaster.

A standout among the county’s seven major malls is Cobb Galleria Centre, which also features 144,000 square feet of exhibit space and a 20,000-square-foot ballroom. There will be even more venue options by September, when the $145 million Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre opens. The facility will feature the 2,750-seat John A. Williams Theatre, a 10,000-square-foot ballroom, a courtyard and terrace, and an 11-acre park.

Directly connected to the Cobb Galleria Centre is the Renaissance Waverly Hotel, boasting more than 60,000 square feet of meeting space.

The Mall of Georgia, one of the largest in the South, in addition to boutique shops and antique stores, are top attractions in Gwinnett County, located 20 minutes north of downtown Atlanta.

Gwinnett offers approximately 100 hotels, several with meeting facilities, as well the Gwinnet Center, with a 700-seat performing arts center, a 50,000-square-foot exhibit hall, 22 meeting rooms, a 21,600-square-foot ballroom, and a 13,000-seat arena where the Gwinnett Gladiators minor-league hockey team and big-name musical artists perform in the 13,000-seat arena.

East of downtown Atlanta, Dekalb County boasts the state’s most-visited attraction: the 3,200-acre Stone Mountain Park, with its giant granite monolith and theme attractions. Here, the 336-room Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort provides 32,000 square feet of meeting space.

Stone Mountain will launch a new seasonal family attraction this year: Coca-Cola Snow Mountain, featuring tubing runs, snow play areas and 20 tons of fresh snow made daily. The attraction will operate from late November through January.


North Georgia Mountains

North of Atlanta, the Appalachians present a world of lakes and recreational areas, quaint towns and meetings resorts.

Lake Sidney Lanier, a 1,100-acre recreational playground, is less than 45 minutes from downtown Atlanta. Its centerpiece, the 216-room Emerald Pointe Resort, has an IACC-certified, 21,000-square-foot conference facility and 18 holes of golf.

Gainesville, one of the region’s two biggest metro areas, borders Lake Lanier. Its historic downtown features the Georgia Mountains Center, an all-purpose facility accommodating up to 4,000 people.

The community of Dalton, just 30 miles from Chattanooga, Tenn., promotes itself as the “Carpet Capital of the World,” and much of the business at its Northwest Trade and Convention Center, offering 143,500 square feet of rentable space, comes from the carpet industry.

The state’s top winery is Chateau Elan Winery and Resort, located 40 minutes northeast of Atlanta in Braselton. Along with a 277-room hotel, four golf courses and a spa, it has a 25,000-square-foot, IACC-certified conference center and a winery with a variety of event space.

Joining Travel + Leisure’s 2007 list of the 500 World’s Best Hotels is Barnsley Gardens Resort north of Atlanta. The property has 70 suites, a Jim Fazio-designed golf course, team-building options, activities ranging from sporting clays to fishing, and 5,000 square feet of meeting space.

Also notable for groups is Brasstown Valley Resort, with 134 rooms, 14,000 square feet of conference space and activities such as golf, white-water rafting and horseback riding.

Planners can also take advantage of Georgia State Parks, which offers five lodges that combine a great outdoors setting with conference facilities. Three are situated in the mountain region: the Lodge at Amicalola Falls State Park, the Lodge at Red Top Mountain State Park and the Unicoi State Park Lodge.


Southern Rivers
Columbus, Albany and Valdosta are the major cities of the Southern Rivers region, which provided homes for two presidents.

Warm Springs has Franklin D. Roosevelt’s retreat, the Little White House Historic Site, which expanded with a museum two years ago, and Plains has the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site.

One of the region’s best-known attractions is the 13,000-acre Callaway Gardens, which boasts 500 guest units, almost 100,000 square feet of meeting space, golfing, boating, and nature discovery centers.

Under new management, the property announced in 2005 that it would be reinvented for the 21st century. Upgrades followed, culminating in the unveiling of the upscale Lodge and Spa, with 150 guest rooms, last November. A 13,000-square-foot spa was about to open at press time.

Georgia’s third-largest metro area, Columbus, is located on the Chattahoochee River and provides 178,000 square feet of rentable space at the riverfront Columbus Convention and Trade Center, an historic ironworks conversion that was doubled in size in 2004.

In June 2005, the city’s meetings capacity increased with the opening of the Cunningham Conference Center at Columbus State University, featuring a range of high-tech spaces, including a 5,400-square-foot banquet facility.

Among the city’s other venues are the Columbus Civic Center and the RiverCenter for the Performing Arts.

Major attractions include the Port Columbus National Civil War Naval Museum, the Columbus Museum of Art and the Coca-Cola Space Science Center.

“Columbus offers the meeting experience of larger destinations without most of the headaches,” says Peter Bowden, president and CEO of the Columbus CVB. “Clients enjoy the flexibility we have that is needed for a successful meeting.”

Albany has also boosted its appeal for meeting planners.

In August 2005, a 122-room Hilton Garden Inn opened. It not only provides additional rooms within walking distance of the Albany Civic Center, but it also has the largest amount of meeting space of any of the destination’s eight meetings properties. Located across from the civic center, the hotel has 13,000 square feet of meeting space.

The civic center features a 10,000-seat arena, 46,000 square feet of exhibit space and 6,000 square feet of meeting space.

Nearby is the $30 million Flint RiverQuarium, which opened in 2004 and showcases the Flint River Basin.

Off Interstate 47, four hours from both Atlanta and Orlando, is Valdosta, which offers the 47,000-square-foot Valdosta-Lowndes County Conference Center.

The 88-unit Lake Blackshear Resort and Golf Club at Georgia Memorial Veterans State Park near Cordele is another group option in the region. The resort has 10,000 square feet of conference space and offers recreational activities such as golfing, boating, fishing, and hunting.


Historic South

Georgia’s heartland is home to three major cities: Augusta, Athens and Macon.

Billed as the “Garden City of the South,” Augusta features a 10-block promenade along the Savannah River that is full of parks, museums and hotels.

Its top meetings hotel, the 372-room Augusta Marriott Hotel and Suites, has 45,000 square feet of meeting space that is owned by the city but operated as part of the Marriott.

According to the Augusta CVB, the city is finalizing the location and management of a proposed trade, exhibit and event center, which it expects to open in 2009. Approved by voters in 2005, the center will feature 40,000 square feet of exhibition space, and it will either be an extension of the Marriott’s meeting facility or located adjacent to it.

The city also offers the Augusta-Richmond County Civic Center, which includes a 23,000-square-foot arena and a 2,690-seat theater.

Just below the Blue Ridge foothills is Athens, home to the University of Georgia, America’s first state-chartered college.

Music groups the B-52’s, R.E.M. and Widespread Panic all hail from Athens, and its vibrant cultural side is also reflected in its downtown collection of art galleries, boutique shops and 50-plus restaurants, in addition to the State Botanical Gardens and the Georgia Museum of Art.

Known as the “Classic City,” Athens offers The Classic Center as its major group venue, serving up more than 70,000 square feet of meeting space. Nine new breakout rooms totaling 5,000 square feet were added last year, following a 15,000-square-foot meeting space expansion in 2004 and 2005.

A 185-room Hilton Garden Inn opened in March 2006 across from the center, bringing the total guest room count within a seven-block radius of the center to 1,115.

“The opening of the Hilton, along with Classic Center’s new space, has opened up new opportunities. Larger groups are now able to come to Athens,” says Chuck Jones, director of the Athens CVB, adding that 16 additional conventions booked because of the new mix of meeting space and guest rooms.

Macon, which gave birth to Southern Rock, is known as the “Song and Soul of the South,” and it has a downtown historic district with attractions such as the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and the Tubman African-American Museum.

Its major group venue, the Macon Centreplex Coliseum and Wilson Convention Center near downtown, includes a 10,242-seat auditorium, 86,000 square feet of exhibit space, a 9,100-square-foot ballroom, and numerous breakout rooms.

The city has been working on a financial package with a developer to build a 300-room convention center hotel.

Macon’s newest major attraction is a 450,000-square-foot Bass Pro Shops and distribution center that opened last October.

Off Interstate 20 between Atlanta and Augusta is one of the state’s top properties: The Ritz-Carlton Lodge, Reynolds Plantation on Lake Oconee. The property has 251 rooms, 81 holes of golf, a spa, and more than 16,000 square feet of meeting space. It was awarded its first AAA Five Diamond award for 2007.


Coastal Georgia

Along Georgia’s 20 miles of Atlantic coastline are the gems of Savannah and Brunswick and the Golden Isles.

Last year the state’s oldest city launched “Savannah, Est. 1733,” a new branding initiative that replaces the previous “Savannah, Georgia’s First City” campaign.

The city’s 2.5-square-mile historic district contains 21 of the original squares laid out upon its founding, and it is packed with restaurants, historic buildings, nightlife options, and hotels, inns and bed-and-breakfast properties. One of the most interesting ways to experience it is through ghost tours, which are offered by roughly 30 companies.

Just across the Savannah River is the 330,000-square-foot, 6-year-old Savannah International Trade and Convention Center. Adjacent to the center is the Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort. On the historic district side of the river are the Hyatt Regency Savannah, the Hilton Savannah DeSoto and the Savannah Marriott Riverfront. Together, the four hotels offer 1,383 guest rooms and more than 100,000 square feet of function space.

“We are a famous leisure destination that is quickly becoming a very popular meetings and conventions destination,” says Joseph Marinelli, president of the Savannah CVB. “The city now offers all that a planner is looking for to produce a successful and well-attended meeting.”

Several years ago, the CVB launched the Savannah Accord, designed to be a one-stop shop for planners that encompasses the convention center and the four hotels. Complimentary ground transportation is offered between the hotels and the convention center, as well as ferry transportation to the convention center.

Marinelli says the accord was the first step in marketing Savannah as a convention destination.

Eighty miles south of Savannah along Interstate 95 is Brunswick, a port city with an historic downtown district. Together with the off-shore islands, the city is marketed as Brunswick and the Golden Isles.

With preserved marshes, wildlife areas and beaches, the region offers soft adventure activities such as kayaking, scuba diving and sailing, in addition to 16 golf courses, almost 8,000 hotel rooms and more than 240,000 square feet of meeting space.

Sea Island boasts the Cloister, which dates to 1928 and was the site of the 2004 G8 Summit. In April 2006, a new main building was unveiled at the Cloister with 100 guest rooms and 17,000 square of meeting space, including a 7,800-square-foot ballroom. Last November, a 65,000-square-foot spa opened at the property.

Group-friendly options on St. Simons Island include the King and Prince Beach and Golf Resort, with 6,130 square feet of meeting space, and the Sea Palms Golf and Tennis Resort, with 7,500 square feet of function space. Ocean Lodge, an upscale boutique property with a conference center, is slated to open this year on the island.

On Jekyll Island, planners can choose from 10 hotels with meeting space, including the 157-room Jekyll Island Club Hotel in the destination’s 240-acre Historic Landmark District.

Large gatherings can be held at the Jekyll Island Convention Center, the isles’ only convention center. The facility offers 55,000 square feet of rentable space.


For More Info

Albany CVB    229.434.8700     www.albanyga.com

Athens CVB    706.357.4430     www.visitathensga.com

Atlanta CVB    404.521.6600     www.atlanta.net

Augusta Metro CVB    706.823.6600     www.augustaga.org

Brunswick and the Golden Isles Visitors Bureau    912.265.0620     www.bgivb.com

Cobb County CVB    678.303.2622     www.cobbcvb.com

Columbus CVB    706.322.1613     www.visitcolumbusga.com

Dalton–Whitfield CVB    706.270.9960     www.daltoncvb.com

DeKalb CVB    770.492.5000     www.dcvb.org

Georgia State Park Lodges    770.975.4291     www.naturallybusiness.com

Gwinnett CVB    770.623.3600     www.gcvb.org

Jekyll Island CVB    912.635.4156     www.jekyllisland.com

Macon–Bibb County CVB    478.743.3401     www.maconga.org

Savannah Area CVB    912.644.6401     www.savannahvisit.com

Valdosta Tourism Authority    229.245.0513     www.valdostatourism.com