While both Philadelphia and Valley Forge played crucial roles in a newborn nation’s struggle for independence, today they play an ever-increasing role in how that nation meets and conducts business.
With an expanding convention center and an impressive wave of new hotels on the horizon, Philadelphia is poised to shine even brighter among major meetings destinations. And in
nearby Valley Forge, which boasts the nation’s largest concentration of IACC-approved conference centers, the quality of tourism infrastructure just keeps getting better.
At the same time, the region has worked hard to preserve and present its considerable array of historic landmarks and Colonial-era buildings as wonderful places to explore and, in many cases, hold a memorable event.
Philadelphia
With its marketing tagline, “Be at liberty to meet,” the Philadelphia CVB is emphasizing both its ties to history and the choice and flexibility it offers planners who are shopping around for hotels and venues, says executive director of sales Jack Ferguson.
Soon the city will offer even more flexibility when the expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, which broke ground last summer, is completed in December 2010. By expanding the current building by 63 percent, the center will gain a 60,000-square-foot ballroom and sport 541,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit space, the largest amount in the Northeast. Overall, the expanded convention center will have 700,000 square feet of exhibit space.
While the extra space will allow the city to handle larger groups, as well as retain some that are outgrowing the center, Ferguson says the real advantage will be the ability to handle two groups at once.
“We will have two separate entrances and two separate spaces for registration, whereas now we can only register one group at a time,” he says. “We’ll be able to accommodate one group in the expanded section and another in the original area.”
The expansion will also enable the city to host conventions during the 48 days a year when the current facility is fully occupied by annual consumer events such as the Philadelphia Flower Show.
Along with more exhibit and pre-function space, the center will also have more meeting rooms—87 as opposed to the current 52. According to Ferguson, this is a crucial point for many customers, particularly healthcare meetings, which account for about 30 percent of the city’s group business.
“A lot of our market puts meeting and breakout space as a priority,” he says. “Networking and education are a big concern to them. The medical groups not only need a lot of exhibit space, but a lot of space for seminars.”
When the convention center is complete, Philadelphia will also have an expanded inventory of hotel rooms supporting the facility.
“We’ve got another 2,500 rooms coming to the convention center area,” Ferguson says. “We’ll have a total of 12,700 to offer, with around 3,000 on peak nights.”
Three of the new downtown properties will be Starwood hotels, including a 202-room Le Meridien that is expected to open next year in a historic YMCA building on Arch Street and feature 5,300 square feet of meeting space. Facing the existing convention center entrance will be a 275-room W Hotel, opening in spring 2009 with 11,000 square feet of meeting space. A Four Points by Sheraton, a limited-service property also across from the center, is set to open this spring.
Kimpton Hotels recently announced that it will be opening its first property in Philadelphia, the 234-room Hotel Palomar, which will be located in an Art Deco building near Rittenhouse Square. With an opening targeted for late 2009, the hotel will feature a penthouse-level ballroom and a 16-seat, high-tech boardroom.
The new hotels will join an already ample supply of meetings-friendly properties, including the 1,408-room Philadelphia Marriott, which is connected to the convention center and recently completed enhancements to its lobby and meeting facilities. The hotel also plans to finish a renovation of its guest units in 2009.
Other choices include the Hyatt Regency Philadelphia at Penn’s Landing; Doubletree Hotel Philadelphia, which recently added a 4,500-square-foot meeting center; Park Hyatt Philadelphia at the Bellevue; Loews Philadelphia; Accor Hotels–Sofitel Philadelphia; The Ritz-Carlton, Philadelphia; Four Seasons Philadelphia; Sheraton Philadelphia City Center; Embassy Suites Center City, which just finished a guest room renovation; and the Omni Hotel at Independence Park, which plans to complete a guest room renovation by the end of the year.
Gaming resorts are also being developed in Philadelphia.
Pending final approvals, Foxwoods Casino Philadelphia plans to construct a casino resort on a 16-acre riverfront tract. The first phase will include gaming facilities, restaurants and entertainment venues, while future phases will include a waterfront hotel and retail shopping.
Sugarhouse Gaming plans to develop a $550 million Sugarhouse Casino at the former Jack Frost Sugar Refinery. The first phase will include restaurants, 3,000 slot machines and a 25,000-square-foot events center, while future plans call for a 500-room hotel and a spa.
Meanwhile, one of the biggest draws for Philadelphia meetings is the wealth of off-site venues and leisure-time activities centered on the city’s historic and cultural landmarks. Along with such world-renowned sites as the Independence National Historical Park and Philadelphia Museum of Art, the city is filled with lesser-known gems that include the Mummers Museum, which displays the lavish costumes worn during the Mummers Parade held on New Year’s Day, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the oldest art museum in the country.
Dining is an increasingly pleasurable experience in Philadelphia, which includes everything from top gourmet establishments to the famous dueling cheesesteak emporiums, Pat’s King of Steaks and Geno’s Steaks, which face off across from one another just outside the Italian Market in South Philly. Other truly local experiences include family-operated BYOB (bring your own bottle) restaurants scattered throughout the city, and the Reading Terminal Market, where vendors put forth everything from Mediterranean specialties to jarred relishes and flaky pies from Amish country.
Valley Forge
In recent years the name Valley Forge has become almost as synonymous with first-rate meeting facilities as it is with the most famous encampment of the American Revolution. While Valley Forge National Historic Park is one of the nation’s most storied attractions, this suburban region about 20 miles from central Philadelphia is also distinguished by its 14 IACC-certified conference centers, the highest concentration in the country.
“We like to call ourselves the conference center center,” says Paul Decker, president of the Valley Forge CVB. “Conferences and small meetings are perfect for us. However, we can host larger meetings, too, as our convention center has two hotels with about 500 rooms.”
The destination’s Valley Forge Convention Plaza features the Valley Forge Convention Center, which is connected to two hotels: the Radisson Hotel Valley Forge and the Scanticon Valley Forge Hotel and Conference Center.
The region’s collection of IACC-certified conference centers includes several in the town of King of Prussia, among them the Scanticon Valley Forge, with 30,000 square feet of meeting space; Sheraton Park Ridge; and Crowne Plaza Valley Forge. Also in King of Prussia, the Dolce Valley Forge, formerly the Hilton Valley Forge, was recently acquired by Dolce International and is undergoing a $17 million renovation.
Others include the ACE Center at Lafayette Hill; Desmond Great Valley Hotel and Conference Center in Malvern; Gregg Conference Center at The American College in Bryn Mawr; Villanova Conference Center at Villanova University in Radnor, and the Doubletree Guest Suites Plymouth, which recently completed a refurbishment of its guest suites.
According to Decker, the region not only boasts outstanding facilities, but offers the group market both value and convenience.
“We’re more affordable than the urban centers, yet we’re just 20 minutes from Philadelphia,” he says. “We offer good access by air, rail and automobile. We also offer a quiet atmosphere in a suburban location, which is what many of our customers, who may be here for training meetings, prefer.”
Decker adds that the region’s wealth of attractions, which include shopping at the King of Prussia Mall and Philadelphia Premium Outlets, plentiful golf courses, museums, and historic sites, are right in sync with the trend for business travelers to bring family along to meetings.
“We’ve always been a big motorcoach and family destination and now that’s starting to pay off for meetings as many people bring their families or extend their stay,” he says. “With the time poverty that everyone is facing, that’s a natural result.”
Increasingly, Valley Forge is earning accolades as a dining destination, he adds.
“Our restaurant scene has really evolved, as it has in many suburban locations,” Decker says. “Restaurants have gotten wise to the fact that a lot of people here were going into Philadelphia for dining. Why not keep them closer to home? We have all the big chains, but a lot of fine specialty restaurants as well.”
Bucks County
Just north of Philadelphia, bucolic Bucks County, with its rolling green meadows, stone walls and postcard villages, is a world away from the urban bustle. Yet, as Heather Walter, meetings and events sales manager for the Bucks County Conference and Visitors Bureau, points out, the region is a highly accessible meetings destination.
“Our location is ideal—we’re just 20 miles north of Philadelphia and 20 miles south of Princeton,” she says. “We draw meetings from both places as well as from Harrisburg and Washington, D.C.”
Although it lacks a convention center, Bucks County has carved a successful niche with small to midsize meetings and executive retreats, according to Walter. Meetings-friendly hotels include the 187-room Sheraton Hotel Bucks County in Langhorne, the 274-room Radisson Hotel Philadelphia Northeast and 214-room Holiday Inn Select Bucks County in Trevose, and the 121-room Holiday Inn Philadelphia Northeast in Bensalem.
Bucks County is especially rich in off-site venues with a historical bent. They include two beautiful 18th century mansions on the banks of the Delaware River in Bensalem, Pen Ryn Mansion and Belle Voir Manor, which offer function spaces that range from intimate libraries to a grand ballroom.
In Doylestown, the James A. Michener Art Museum, which contains an impressive collection of artwork by Pennsylvania artists, has a variety of event areas that include a sculpture garden, spacious galleries, a grand entrance hall, a pavilion, and a boardroom.
Another venue associated with a local author is the Pearl S. Buck House, with 68 acres of gardens, ponds and picnic areas surrounding the writer’s 1825 farmhouse. Function spaces range from a carpeted Garden Tent accommodating 300 people to a conference room for up to 25 people.
For More Info
Bucks County Conference and Visitors Bureau 215.639.0300
www.buckscountycvb.org
Philadelphia CVB 215.636.3300
www.pcvb.org
Valley Forge CVB 610.834.1550
www.valleyforge.org
