Looking for destinations that are new, well equipped and fresh? Locations that will wow attendees with unexpected pleasures?
Nobody has come up yet with an off-the-shelf plan for destinations to follow if they want to ramp up their meetings business. Many American cities have spent millions in recent years, placing new convention centers and sports arenas in transitioning downtown core districts in hopes that other investments—especially hotels—will follow. Some have added new attractions and arts venues to sweeten their appeal.
Results have been mixed, with hospitality consultants saying there’s an excess of convention center inventory, especially in cities that have little chance of becoming big players in the meetings industry.
“Markets that are interesting tourist destinations stand the best chance of developing into successful meetings cities,” says John Keeling, senior vice president of PKF Consulting in Houston. “There’s no doubt overbuilding has occurred because some destinations have no business building a convention center. They will never be serious contenders. But markets that are popular with leisure travelers—and have good access—can be successful even in the midst of the overbuilding.”
Several Southern cities are among the emerging contenders. They seem to be on the right road to group business success, and they are winning more contracts from meetings buyers who want fresh destinations that sparkle with exciting and new facilities, attractions and activities.
Rising Texas Stars
For decades, Texas had two major meetings destinations—the big business cities of Dallas and Houston—and, in recent years, San Antonio, which Keeling believes is a prime example of a good leisure destination that has developed into a meetings hot spot. Now, he says, it’s time to make room for Austin.
“Austin used to be good for leisure, but not so good for meetings,” he says, “because it didn’t have convention space and large hotels. But now those facilities are in place. The capital is now a serious contender for regional and some national business.”
Roy Benear, senior vice president of the Austin CVB, agrees.
“Austin didn’t have a convention center until 1991, and in 2004 a new 800-room Hilton headquarters hotel really put us into a new league,” he says. “Our new airport opened in 2000, and we are ahead of San Antonio with the amount of airlift we have now, with more airlines looking at us all the time.”
He points to his bureau’s stats on sales leads as evidence of the city’s growing attraction to meetings buyers. Numbers have gone from 1 million room nights three years ago to over 2 million room nights for 2007.
“These numbers are good indicators of the interest people are showing in Austin,” he says.
Benear says Austin’s vibrant youth and music culture is generating excitement in the business arena, with multiple 24-hour live music districts.
“When buyers come here, they have OMG reactions. They frequently talk about the ease of getting around the city, the hospitality of people who live here and, of course, our nightlife,” he says. “We are also still cost effective, because you can still get your money’s worth even though industry occupancy reports have us with strong demand in the 70s.”
According to Keeling, Fort Worth is another rising Texas meetings star.
“Fort Worth is becoming more of a meetings destination, because the Bass family has seen to it that the downtown core is interesting with globally famous art museums, the Historic Stockyards and an expanded convention center,” he says. “The city needs more quality hotels, but that is changing.”
David Dubois, president and CEO of the Forth Worth CVB, has numbers to prove his city’s developing meetings mettle, along with some new hotels. The Sheraton Forth Worth Hotel and Spa has just opened with 430 guest rooms and the 600-room Omni Forth Worth Hotel opens next January. Downtown hotel room inventory is doubling, he says, to 2,400 rooms.
“Sixty percent of our fiscal year is complete, and we’ve already exceeded in future meetings bookings what we did in our best year to date, over a 12-month period,” Dubois says. “About 30 percent of the business we formally bid on is completed.”
Fort Worth’s famed “cowboys and culture” has attracted leisure travelers for years, and now it’s doing the same for meeting planners who arrive for the bureau’s destination education visits, he says.
“We’d like more planners to see our city because once they see our unique attractions and facilities, many book us,” Dubois continues. “They realize DFW International Airport gives us an enviable centralized location, so we are getting interest not just for national but also international groups.”
As part of its marketing and sales initiatives to snare more meetings business, Fort Worth is partnering with two CVBs on the West and East coasts, Sacramento and Baltimore. The strategy is based on a national hotel model that encourages buyers to sign multiyear contracts for different locations, thereby positioning themselves for more competitive pricing.
Coastal Change
On the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Biloxi is another emerging meetings star, according to Keeling.
“The state has decided it wants Biloxi to be the next Atlantic City, and they are expecting to have 50,000 hotel rooms on-line within the coming 10 years,” he says. “They are building casinos which are the quality you find in Vegas—in fact, Beau Rivage feels like Vegas.”
Hurricane Katrina actually handed the region’s casino operators a favor when it slammed the coast in 2005, Keeling adds. Before the storm devastated the area, the region had mostly small “mom-and-pop” style casinos on boats. But when the state legislature passed laws to allow land casinos to be built on land within a certain distance of the water, development began to surge.
Crystal Johnson, director of sales for the Mississippi Gulf Coast CVB, says airline lift into her region is also fueling growth.
“Since Katrina, the number of seats available into our area has increased by 140 percent,” she says, “and several new airlines have added service into cities like Chicago, Charlotte, Houston, Dallas, Memphis, and several in Florida.”
While a good group size for the Biloxi area is now around 2,000 people, Johnson says the spring 2010 opening of the 798-room, $700 million Margaritaville Casino and Resort, a joint venture between Harrah’s and entertainer Jimmy Buffet, will enable the area to handle up to 5,000.
“With that opening, we’ll be more of a national destination,” she says.
Raleigh Ramps Up
Pent-up demand for meetings facilities will finally get answered this year with the opening of a $3 billion development centerpiece, according to Denny Edwards, president and CEO of the Raleigh CVB. The new 500,000- square-foot Raleigh Convention Center and its attached headquarters hotel, the 400-room Marriott Raleigh City Center, will both be open by early fall and ready to serve the city’s core markets of health science, technology and higher education.
“We’ve had a lot of demand from our bread and butter markets for more product to accommodate meetings needs, and that begins with the state association market, many of which are based right here in the Research Triangle region,” Edwards says. “Raleigh has seen the opportunities the meetings and conventions market can bring to us, and we are answering it.”
Edwards also cites Raleigh’s cultural amenities as a draw for meetings buyers.
“We have our own opera, live theater, symphony, and performing arts center downtown,” he says. “And our museum district is often called the Smithsonian of the South. We have plenty of restaurants and clubs downtown.
“We still need more hotel rooms to add to the 1,000 we have within walking distance from the convention center, and we are expecting to add another 1,200 within the next three to four years,” he adds. Once those are online, we will have an absolutely complete meetings package for anyone who is looking in the southeast region.”
Birmingham Beefs Up
A new entertainment district and hotel development are lifting Alabama’s first city into the meetings limelight.
When a new 255-room Marriott Renaissance hotel within three blocks of the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex and a $40 million entertainment, dining and retail center open by the end of 2009 in the downtown district, Birmingham will be prepared to host meetings groups as never before, says Mike Gunn, vice president of sales for the Birmingham CVB.
“We haven’t had enough hotel rooms and enough for attendees to do within walking distance of the convention center,” he says. “The developments that are under way will give us 1,200 rooms within walking distance, and 136,000 square feet of entertainment, dining and retail venues.”
Birmingham once generated sparks as an iron and steelmaking town. Now it’s preparing to fire off entertainment sparks inside a complex known as The Forge. Alabama-born American Idols Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard each plan to open a club in the new entertainment district. Other tenants signed on include Rhythm & Blues, Iron City Saloon, Bluesboro, Wet Willie’s, Sleep Out Louie’s, Mesquite Chop House, and Wow Cafe & Winery. Two courtyards will offer space for special events, outdoor concerts and festivals.
The Forge will augment the city’s considerable profile as a center of civil rights history, sporting events and lower-cost airline access.
“We have long been a draw with some of the cheapest airline costs in the U.S.,” Gunn says, “because we are centrally located and most of the major airlines fly in here. So we believe the new downtown developments will really put us in the meetings arena.”
