Stretching from Williamsburg in the north to Virginia Beach and Chesapeake 60 miles to the south, the Hampton Roads region in southeast Virginia is officially one metropolitan statistical area, but it is a metro region with an exceedingly diverse mix of locales.
Dominated by seven cities, the area was labeled Hampton Roads in the 17th century, taking its name from its huge natural harbor. A new tagline, “America’s First Region,” has been gradually taking hold, a tribute to its deep Colonial roots.
The area has one of the nation’s highest concentrations of military and naval installations. There are wildlife refuges and beaches, rivers and inlets, lots of opportunities for day cruises, recreation and oceanfront dining, and impressive attractions attesting to a legacy of seafaring and early American history.
Gleaming new convention centers are attracting new business, and impressive city center, mixed-use “lifestyle” projects are taking shape.
Virginia Beach
The state’s beach playground is also its largest city, with a population of 460,000 spread over 497 square miles that include a three-mile-long boardwalk, miles of beaches and 12,000 hotel rooms.
The $202 million, 500,000-square-foot Virginia Beach Convention Center was completed in January last year, when most of its exhibit space opened. Within a two-mile radius are 3,500 committable rooms.
Located six blocks from the beach, it features a 150,000-square-foot, column-free exhibit hall, 28,900 square feet of meeting space, and a 31,000-square-foot ballroom.
The next phase of development for the convention center is a headquarters hotel and an entertainment district, both of which are in the planning stages.
According to James B. Ricketts, director of the Virginia Beach CVB, the center has been exceeding projections and expectations. Last year, the center hosted 413 events, double the number of the Virginia Beach Pavilion that it replaced.
Meanwhile, Hampton Roads as a whole gained valuable exposure in February when the American Bus Association (ABA) held its annual Marketplace at the Virginia Beach Convention Center, offering six fam trip options that covered the region.
With 3,300 registered delegates, ABA enthused that it was the most heavily attended Marketplace in the event’s 27-year history, each delegate category producing record numbers.
Meanwhile, the Virginia Beach CVB has also booked its first convention as a result of a three-year marketing partnership with the San Jose [Calif.] CVB, the National Association of Air Medical Services in 2013.
Al Hutchinson, the CVB’s vice president, convention sales, points out one of the destination’s biggest advantages for groups.
“Our hotels are the best value during the prime meeting and convention season, September through May,” he says.
Virginia Beach is equipped with numerous meetings-ready properties, including popular options like the IACC-certified Founders Inn and Spa, the Hilton Virginia Beach Oceanfront, the Sheraton Oceanfront, and the Cavalier Hotel, and the lineup continues to grow and improve.
The 236-room Westin Virginia Beach Town Center debuted last November with 10,000 square feet of meeting space, along with the 1,200-seat Sandler Center for Performing Arts. They are new components of the city’s Town Center, a mixed-use project spanning more than 17 city blocks and featuring offices, residential units, shopping, and restaurants off the Norfolk Virginia Beach Expressway, nine miles from both the Virginia Beach Convention Center and downtown Norfolk. Town Center also has a 176-room Hilton Garden Inn.
Last fall, the former 242-room Ramada Plaza Resort, with 16,000 square feet of meeting space, was reflagged the Wyndham Virginia Beach Oceanfront following a multimillion-dollar renovation.
Meanwhile, the 168-suite Springhill Suites Virginia Beach Oceanfront opened last July with 1,200 square feet of meeting space, and the 120-room Days Inn Oceanfront will be reflagged the Hampton Inn Virginia Beach Oceanfront North in May following major renovations.
Norfolk
With the world’s largest naval base, homeport to more than 100 ships of the Atlantic fleet, Norfolk is Virginia’s second-largest city, with a population of more than 230,000.
The city is enjoying the benefits of major downtown revitalizations that mainly took shape during the 1990s.
Rejuvenation left it with what the Norfolk CVB promotes as the “Waterside Convention Connection,” an alliance covering 10 downtown square blocks with over 1,200 committable rooms and 121,000 square feet of meeting space.
It includes the Norfolk Waterside Marriott, connected to the Waterside Convention Center, with 60,000 square feet of function space; the Sheraton Norfolk Waterside; the Radisson Hotel Norfolk; and the Waterside Festival Marketplace, with more than 100 stores and restaurants. Nearby, the Norfolk Scope Arena offers an additional 85,000 square feet of function space.
The city, which expects to welcome more than 100,000 cruise passengers this year, added another venue option in March 2007, when it opened the $36 million Half Moone Cruise and Celebration Center. The facility offers five event spaces totaling 33,000 square feet and can accommodate groups of up to 1,500 people.
Meanwhile, the city’s Nauticus science museum is a top waterfront attraction that can accommodate 3,000 people for receptions, and another event-ready option is the battleship USS Wisconsin. The Chrysler Museum of Art and the Norfolk Botanical Garden are also available for events.
Among the new bookings the Norfolk CVB announced this year are the Society of Government Meeting Professionals (SGMP), which will meet in Norfolk in 2011, and the Student and Youth Travel Association, coming in September 2009. Both events are expected to draw more than 2,000 delegates each.
Hampton
Founded in 1610, Hampton claims to be the nation’s oldest continuous English-speaking settlement.
A notable Hampton feature is Fort Monroe, the nation’s largest stone fort, completed in 1834 and now headquarters of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command. It houses the Casemate Museum, where Confederate President Jefferson Davis was imprisoned.
The waterfront area boasts the Virginia Air & Space Museum, which can accommodate groups of up to 2,000 people, and the 172-room Hampton Marina Hotel, a former Radisson, with 7,600 square feet of meeting space. Under new ownership, it will be rebranded a Crowne Plaza following renovations later this year.
Development is under way three miles from the waterfront in the Coliseum Central District, home of the 3-year-old, 344,000-square-foot Hampton Roads Convention Center.
Equipped with a 108,000-square-foot exhibit hall, a 28,000-square-foot ballroom and 35 meeting spaces, the facility is connected to a 295-unit Embassy Suites. Nearby are the 84,000-square-foot Hampton Coliseum arena and more than 2,500 hotel rooms, most within walking distance of the convention center.
Across Interstate 64 via an overpass from the center is the 107-acre Power Plant retail and entertainment area, anchored by a Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World.
The 149-room Hilton Garden Inn Hampton Coliseum Central debuted in November on Power Plant Parkway a half-mile from the center, and behind it the SpringHill Suites Hampton, with 2,660 square feet of meeting space, opened April 1. Additionally, a Hampton Inn is slated to open this summer on Coliseum Drive near the convention center.
A year ago, the city announced the $200 million Crossroads Development, which will add a full-service hotel and a 2,000-seat theater on an adjacent site, although ground has yet to be broken. Also, north of the convention center, the first stores are open at the new Peninsula Town Center on the former Coliseum Mall site, slated to be completed next year.
Mary Fugere, CMP, director of media and community relations for the Hampton CVB, says various projects that are under way are aimed at making the whole area more pedestrian-friendly.
The convention center, she says, has been very successful.
“We’re perfect for SMERF groups,” she explains. “We get a lot of government and military business, reunions and state associations.”
Other new projects in Hampton include the Boo Williams Sportsplex, a $13.5 million, 135,000-square-foot indoor amateur sports facility that opened in March two miles from the convention center.
Williamsburg
Williamsburg is part of the “Historic Triangle” that also encompasses Jamestown and Yorktown.
Downtown Williamsburg merges with the adjacent 300-acre Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia’s capital from 1699 to 1800 after it moved from Jamestown and nowadays known as the “world’s largest living museum.’’
Close by is Yorktown, where British Gen. Charles Cornwallis surrendered to Gen. George Washington in 1781, ending the Revolutionary War, and Jamestown, site of America’s first permanent English settlement in 1607.
Jamestown and Yorktown are connected to Williamsburg by the National Park Service’s 23-mile Colonial Highway.
All eyes were on Jamestown last year when the Commonwealth of Virginia commemorated the 400th anniversary of Jamestown’s founding with special events statewide. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth visited Jamestown in May, on the anniversary of the landing.
Kate Hamaker, director of conference sales at the Greater Williamsburg Chamber and Tourism Alliance, says the Jamestown 2007 commemoration has resulted in “a huge amount of meetings interest.”
“It was terrific. We were getting press worldwide,” she says. “We’re now way ahead in leads compared with a year ago. We have RFPs from groups through 2013.”
The Commonwealth of Virginia and the National Park Service each operate museums at Jamestown and Yorktown. More than 1 million visitors experienced the state’s Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center last year, a 44.7 percent increase in paid admissions over 2006.
Nineteen Williamsburg properties, which account for more than 40 percent of the area’s 10,000 hotel rooms, have meeting space. Options include Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s 322-room Williamsburg Lodge, which has 45,000 square feet of meeting space and was reconstructed and expanded in 2006. Among the other Colonial Williamsburg properties with meeting space are the Williamsburg Inn and the Woodlands Hotel and Suites.
Outside Colonial Williamsburg, the city offers meetings-equipped properties such as the Williamsburg Marriott, with 40,000 square feet of meeting space; the 3-year-old Great Wolf Lodge Williamsburg, with 20,000 square feet of function space; and the IACC-certified Kingsmill Resort and Conference Center, with 16,000 square feet of meeting space.
Meanwhile, Williamsburg’s shopping options continue to grow. Its Prime Outlets, featuring more than 90 brand-name stores, opened another 25 in April as part of a 115,000-square-foot expansion.
Additionally, The Marquis, a 1 million-square-foot, mixed-use “lifestyle” center, is under development off Interstate 64 and will feature a variety of shopping options. A 114-room Hyatt Place is also opening at The Marquis this winter.
Newport News
South of Williamsburg is Newport News, home to attractions such as the Virginia Living History Museum, the Virginia War Museum, the U.S. Army Transportation Museum, and the Mariners Museum.
In March 2007, the Mariners Museum unveiled the $30 million USS Monitor Center, which features a full-scale replica of the ship that was engaged in the famous Civil War ironclads battle and its original turret. (The vessel later sank off the North Carolina coast and the turret was recovered some years ago.)
The city boosted its meetings capability in 2006. One of six new hotels opened that year was the 256-room Newport News Marriott at City Center Hotel and Conference Center, with 25,000 square feet of meeting space. The property is part of City Center at Oyster Point, a growing 52-acre residential, office and shopping district.
Suzanne Pearson, media relations manager at the Newport News Tourism Development Office, explains that City Center has been opening in phases. The first big concentration of retailers and restaurants was unveiled in April 2006, and the project continues to expand.
“We are also seeing more and more events at City Center this year, including free spring and summer concerts and a wine festival this fall,” she says.
Other notable options among the city’s 16 meetings-friendly hotels are the Omni Newport News and the Point Plaza Suites at City Center.
Two hotels are opening in June near Newport News Williamsburg Airport: the 120-room Courtyard Newport News and the 125-room Residence Inn Newport News Airport.
Chesapeake
A 15-minute drive west of downtown Norfolk brings visitors to Chesapeake, a city with 2,800 hotel rooms.
The city operates the Chesapeake Conference Center, which includes a 20,000-square-foot ballroom.
Slated to open in September next to the center is the 226-room Marriott Chesapeake, with 13,100 square feet of meeting space. Formerly a Holiday Inn that closed last year, the property is undergoing renovation.
“We’re excited about the new Marriott. Paired with the Chesapeake Conference Center, it will provide the foundation for a great meetings package,” says Kim Murden, director of conventions and tourism at Chesapeake Conventions and Tourism.
Last August, Towne Place, a 170,000-square-foot retail and restaurant center, opened in the city’s Greenbrier Business District. Plans are also under way to build a 199-room Hyatt Place at the development.
The area has more than 30 miles of waterways and includes the 763-acre Northwest River Park and the 107,000-acre Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.
“Our outdoor recreation options and proximity to many area attractions provide endless opportunities to design exciting, customized meeting packages any time of year,” Murden says.
Portsmouth
Adjoining Norfolk, Portsmouth has miles of frontage along the Elizabeth River.
Downtown’s one-square-mile Olde Towne Portsmouth provides a classic destination for walking tours. It offers carriage rides, evening lantern tours, harbor cruises, and five museums.
Old Towne is also home to meetings-ready properties such as the IACC-certified Renaissance Portsmouth Hotel and Waterfront Conference Center, the Holiday Inn-Olde Towne, and Hawthorn Hotel and Suites.
The waterfront also features the 3,500-seat NTELOS Pavilion Harbor Center, a performing arts venue that is also available for events.
Suffolk
Covering 430 square miles and close to the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Suffolk is one of Virginia’s largest cities in land area, but it is the smallest of the Hampton Roads’ seven cities in population, with around 80,000 people.
Three years ago, the city unveiled the 150-room Hilton Garden Inn and Suffolk Conference Center, which offers 14,000 square feet of meeting space and is the cornerstone of the city’s renaissance.
Another meetings hotel, downtown’s Quality Inn Suffolk, can host banquets for up to 300 people.
Off-site venues include the National Guard Armory and The Planters Club, a waterfront facility.
For More Info
Chesapeake Conventions and Tourism 757.502.4898
www.visitchesapeake.com
Greater Williamsburg Chamber and Tourism Alliance 757.229.6511
www.visitwilliamsburg.com
Hampton CVB 757.722.1222
www.hamptoncvb.com
Newport News Tourism Development Office 757.926.1400
www.newport-news.org
Norfolk CVB 757.664.6620
www.norfolkcvb.com
Portsmouth CVB 757.923.3880
www.suffolk-fun.com
Suffolk Division of Tourism 757.923.3880
www.suffolk-fun.com
Virginia Beach CVB 757.385.4700
www.vbfun.com
Virginia Tourism Corporation 800.811.4296
www.vatc.org
