In recent times, no region of the U.S. has felt the impact of nature on its meetings and tourism infrastructure quite like the Gulf of Mexico.
It took Katrina and Rita slamming into the Gulf in 2005 to prove this point. The 2008 hurricane season was very active, too. This time, the victim was Texas, most notably the alluring beach-fringed islands at each end of its coast.
Fortunately, the destinations are back on their feet, their tourism and convention industries getting out the message that they are open for business and welcoming visitors.
Hurricane Dolly, the first of the season in July, decimated tourism infrastructure on Texas’ South Padre Island close to the Mexican border. In September, 400 miles away, Ike slammed into Galveston and Houston’s Bay Area, Beaumont and Port Arthur.
Gustav was lurking around over the Labor Day weekend. Visitors were evacuated from New Orleans, Mississippi coastal casinos closed for several days and coastal Alabama’s peak tourism period faced a sudden decline.
To make matters worse, this hurricane season came at a time when America had been officially in a recession for months.
“We’re now in unchartered waters,” says Richard Forester, executive director of the Mississippi Gulf Coast CVB, of the uncertain year ahead.
His region, however, ended 2008 with a gaming revenue record that could spark envy in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and most other gaming destinations.
Considering their Katrina devastation, both coastal Mississippi and New Orleans have made remarkable tourism recoveries. With major hotels upgraded, the Big Easy has been attracting a level of corporate group business it didn’t have before.
TEXAS
Houston/Bay Area
Houston’s hotel business got a boost in September when many sought shelter from Ike and its aftermath.
“Our biggest issue was power outages,” says Lindsey Brown, marketing director for the Greater Houston CVB.
Ike came in a year of change for the George R. Brown Convention Center, which in April unveiled Discovery Green, a 12-acre urban park fronting the center that includes a one-acre lake, a children’s playground, restaurants and an amphitheater and lawns that add to event venue options.
In October, The Houston Pavilions opened nearby, an entertainment complex that includes a House of Blues as well as retail stores and office space.
“Our convention package has changed completely. It has a new look and feel. Discovery Green and The Pavilions have made downtown much more attractive,” Brown says.
Adjacent to the center, construction will start in March on a 262-room Embassy Suites with 6,000 square feet of meeting space in this central business district offering 5,000 rooms. The hotel is set to open in fall 2010.
A city of 2.2 million people in 600 square miles, Houston spreads out to encompass the country’s sixth-largest metro area, with 5.5 million people. The surrounding Bay Area, which includes seven cities and 4,000 guest rooms in more than 50 properties, was in Ike’s path.
“We’re welcoming groups back,” says Pam Summers, president of the Bay Area Houston CVB. “We lost lots of group business. Many shops, eateries and attractions are open, some since just days after the storm.”
The two major meetings hotels never closed. South Shore Harbor & Conference Center, which has 30,000 square feet of meeting space, suffered minimal damage; Hilton Houston NASA Clear Lake, which has a 5,000-square-foot ballroom and was constantly depicted on cable news during the storm, recently completed repairs.
The most notable devastation occurred at one of the area’s best-known attractions: Kemah Boardwalk. Eight of its 12 restaurants reopened before year’s end, including the Aquarium restaurant and Boardwalk Inn, both with event space, and others were preparing to reopen. Its amusement park reopens in March.
Galveston
Less than 50 miles from downtown Houston, Galveston Island, two miles wide with 32 miles of beaches, was easy hurricane prey.
“We’re open for business but there’s been the perception that we’re closed,” says RoShelle Gaskins, Galveston Island CVB public relations manager.
According to Gaskins, only around 400 of the island’s 5,000 guest rooms remain out of action, most of them at small properties, while occupancies remained high with rooms filled with relief and construction personnel.
The CVB, whose staff blitzed Texas cities in November and December with the welcome message, expects tourism to be pretty much back to normal by spring break.
Downtown’s historic Strand District welcomed its first post-Ike cruise ship in November. The first stores reopened in time for the city’s first major post-Ike annual event, Dickens on the Strand, held in early December, which attracted 20,000 people.
December also saw the start of a seawall beach sand replenishment program.
The 140,000-square-foot Galveston Island Convention Center, part of the 30-acre San Luis Resort with 700 hotel rooms in three hotels, held its first post-Ike event Oct. 1.
The first substantial post-hurricane meeting held at the 428-room Moody Gardens Hotel & Convention Center, which has 100,000 square feet of available space, drew 700 attendees from a Texas association Oct. 18-21.
One significant meetings hotel has remained closed, the Tremont House, which is undergoing restoration and slated to reopen soon. It is one of two Wyndham Historical Hotels; the other, Hotel Galvez, is open.
South Padre Island
Last July, Dolly slammed into vulnerable South Padre Island, an island playground just three blocks wide and 34 miles long with 4,000 guest rooms 30 miles from the Mexican border.
“We are currently at about 65 percent inventory,” says Dan Quandt, executive director at the South Padre Island CVB. “The majority of properties are totally open. If groups are able to have meetings here we are ready to host them.”
South Padre Island Convention Center, the town’s largest group venue, with 45,000 square feet of rentable space, reopened the second week of October while work continued on the roof.
Other open meetings-equipped hotels are the Isla Grand Beach Resort (the former Radisson), La Copa Beach, La Quinta and the island’s newest property, the 90-unit Suites at Sunchase with 16,000 square feet of meeting space.
The Bahia Mar Resort and Conference Center, with 13,000 square feet of meeting space, is slated to reopen by May, and the Sheraton Fiesta with 8,500 square feet plans on a March 21 reopening.
Corpus Christi
After the storm, Corpus Christi launched a Texas radio advertising campaign called “Goodbye Dolly. The Coast is Clear!” promoting that the city is open for business.
“Luckily we weren’t touched. We had no major conventions at this time. We didn’t lose any group business although attendance for some meetings was down,” says Ed Persall, Corpus Christi CVB vice president of convention sales. “We’re looking at a pretty good year for 2009, with several conventions in the 1,500 to 2,500 range.”
Texas’ largest waterfront city has beaches, an urban metro area, a port, an international airport and 11,000 hotel rooms. The city’s primary venue, the American Bank Center, includes 75,000 square feet of exhibit space and an adjacent 10,000-seat arena.
The city has added around 1,700 rooms in the last two years. A Courtyard by Marriott and a Hampton Inn and Suites opened in 2008, and a Holiday Inn Express and a Staybridge Suites are expected to open this year.
Beaumont and Port Arthur
While the winds of Rita caused the big damage in 2005, it was flooding from Ike that was the problem last year for Beaumont and Port Arthur, an hour east of Houston.
“We got the ‘dirty’ side of Ike and all the water, and lost two months of meetings business,” says Stephanie Molina, marketing director at the Beaumont CVB. “Downtown was not affected. It’s as beautiful as ever and is continuing to be revitalized.”
One of Beaumont’s two major meetings hotels, the Holiday Inn Beaumont Plaza, which has 22,000 square feet of meeting space, is expected to reopen in March following repairs. The MCM Elegante, which has 17,000 square feet, never closed.
Few other properties are closed in this city of 3,000 rooms.
No hotels are closed in Port Arthur, 17 miles away, although some suffered minor damage.
The city’s Bowers Civic Center, which has a 20,000-square-foot exhibit hall, is open. (Damaged by Rita, it reopened in August 2007 after reconstruction.)
Port Arthur has 1,400 rooms, which is almost double the pre-Rita number. A Mainstay Inn & Suites, a Comfort Suites and an Eco-Lodge have opened in the last year.
LOUISIANA
Lake Charles
An hour east of Beaumont, the Lake Charles area escaped Ike except for some minor damage and business disruption.
In December, the Lake Charles/Southwest Louisiana CVB announced a new branding campaign with the message, “Are You Game?” designed to promote the area as a center for youth sports as well as for gaming, hunting and fishing.
“We’re anticipating that our new image campaign will boost awareness of the unique character of our area,” says Shelley Johnson, the CVB’s executive director.
Meetings properties include two waterfront casino hotels: Pinnacle Entertainment’s L’Auberge du Lac Hotel and Casino, now with almost 1,000 rooms and 28,000 square feet of meeting space—it unveiled a 250-room addition early in 2008—and the 400-room Isle of Capri, which also has meeting space. Downtown has a civic center with 62,000 square feet of available space, and the area has more than 4,000 hotel rooms.
Johnson says the bureau looks forward to welcoming Sugarcane Bay, a second casino resort that Pinnacle plans to open in 2010.
New Orleans
Continuing on its path to full tourism recovery, the Crescent City hosted 4 million visitors in the first six months of 2008. The New Orleans Metropolitan CVB estimates that 2008 figures will show total visitors somewhere between the 7.1 million of 2007 (up from 3.7 million in 2006) and the pre-Katrina norm of around 8.5 million.
The Morial Convention Center expects to end 2008 with its occupancy level almost 12 percentage points ahead of 2007.
According to Tim Hemphill, the center’s vice president-sales and marketing, 2009 is shaping up to be a very good year.
“The shorter booking cycle for sizable events continues to surprise us,” he says.
Extraordinary Experiences, a meetings incentive program launched by the CVB and center last summer, offers complimentary space and marketing resources for specific months until 2011. Its booking deadline has been extended to March 2009.
The Morial completed a $60 million restoration in November 2006. Hemphill says another $8 million in improvements was spent in recent months to be ready for PCMA’s annual convention in January, and another $12 million will be spent this year.
With 33,000 of 38,000 pre-Katrina hotel rooms available, two standout meetings hotels acquired by new owners remain closed: the Fairmont New Orleans and the Hyatt Regency New Orleans next to the Superdome.
Reborn as a Waldorf=Astoria Collection hotel, the 500-room Fairmont with 50,000 square feet of meeting space reopens in June as The Roosevelt (its name from 1923 to 1965) after a $135 million renovation. Following the recent approval of financing through tax-exempt bonds, plans are moving ahead to renovate the 1,184-room Hyatt Regency.
Construction is slated to start this year to restore the French Quarter’s Cosmopolitan Hotel. The project includes the construction of a new 26-story, 107-room condo hotel and the restoration of the original 24-room 1892 building.
MISSISSIPPI
Mississippi Gulf Coast
Casino revenues along the 26-mile Mississippi Gulf Coast were expected to end the year down around 3 percent from 2007 (a record year when they topped $1 billion) but still above the previous record set in 2004.
“Gaming has been strong. It’s the decline in hotel occupancy that’s a concern,” says Mississippi Gulf Coast CVB’s Forester. “We’re trying to boost meetings business for both the short and long term, especially for the smaller meetings.”
Biloxi’s Mississippi Coast Coliseum & Convention Center is wrapping up a renovation. Slated for an October completion is an expansion that will increase the center’s rentable space from 180,000 to 351,000 square feet.
Last May, the 153-room Courtyard by Marriott Gulfport, the former Gulfport Beachfront Hotel, reopened with 6,300 square feet of meeting space following a $9.6 million renovation.
Biloxi’s former Gulf Towers, damaged by Katrina, will open in April as the 200-room Four Points by Sheraton Biloxi Beach Boulevard following reconstruction.
Harrah’s has reportedly slowed construction and downsized its proposed $700 million, 798-room Margaritaville Casino & Resort, which called for 66,000 square feet of meeting space and an early 2010 opening.
ALABAMA
Mobile
Sixty miles from Biloxi is Mobile, Alabama’s third-largest city, where the 317,000-square-foot Arthur R. Outlaw Convention Center on the downtown waterfront has undergone a renovation and upgrade.
“Mobile has changed tremendously. It’s a hidden gem,” says David Randel, vice president, sales at the Mobile Bay CVB.
Closed for 30 years, the historic 238-room Battle House hotel near the convention center opened as a Renaissance property in May 2007 as part of a restoration that includes a new 39-story tower complex and spa.
In November 2007, the 375-room Riverview Plaza Hotel, connected to the convention center by skywalks and offering 44,000 square feet of meeting space, was also reflagged a Renaissance hotel following a two-year, $64 million renovation.
Alabama Gulf Coast
Beginning 80 miles southeast of Mobile, Alabama’s Gulf Coast has 30 miles of beach, 13,000 accommodation units and the cities of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.
A handful of resorts provide meeting facilities. The largest is the 347-room Peridido Beach Resort.
A new venue, the Conference Center at The Wharf, opens this spring with 27,000 square feet of meeting space, including an 18,600-square-foot hall. It will be part of The Wharf, a complex offering shopping, a half-mile-long boardwalk, a marina, a 10,200-seat amphitheater.
Herb Malone, president and CEO of the Alabama Gulf Coast CVB, says the addition will provide much needed meeting space and will help bring more groups to the coast.
FLORIDA
Pensacola
Undergoing a $15 million renovation, downtown’s historic Saenger Theatre reopens Feb. 15 with a Broadway season and an additional 3,000 square feet of meeting space. Less than a mile from the primary event facility, the Pensacola Civic Center, the theater will seat up to 1,650.
New beach properties continue to open on the sites of those damaged by Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
On Pensacola Beach, a Holiday Inn Express opened last summer, replacing the Dunes, and there are plans to break ground on a Holiday Inn with 10,000 square feet of meeting space on the site of the Beachside Resort. Work is also under way on a 162-room Hotel Indigo with 3,000 square feet of meeting space. Both hotels are scheduled for a spring 2010 opening.
Emerald Coast
To the east are the 24 miles of beaches of Okaloosa County with 18,000 guest rooms and the resort areas of Destin, Fort Walton Beach and Okaloosa Island.
The primary venue, the 5-year-old Emerald Coast Conference Center on Okaloosa Island, has 35,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space. Of the dozen hotels with meeting space, the largest is the 335-room Ramada Plaza Beach Resort, which has 14,000 square feet.
Darrel Jones, the Emerald Coast CVB’s executive director and CEO, says that for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 lodging revenues were up 2 percent and conference center occupancy was up 24 percent.
“That’s great in these economic times. We’re expanding our conference facility by adding a much-needed tented area to handle trade show and event overflow. We’re looking at a new full-service Hilton, which should be completed by April 2010,” he says.
The newest property, the 125-unit Waterscape, opened last March across from the conference center.
Tampa Bay
Tampa boasts the waterfront 650,000-square-foot Tampa Convention Center, connected to the 2-year-old, 360-suite Embassy Suites Tampa–Downtown.
The city is hosting the Super Bowl Feb. 1, which will help boost business for the year.
“We’re very fortunate. Thankfully for that we are in decent shape, and overall, 2008 was a pretty good year,” says Alex Kaptzan, director of convention sales at Tampa Bay & Company, Tampa’s CVB.
The new Tampa Bay History Center recently opened, and three properties, a TownePlace Suites, Hilton Garden Inn and Homewood Suites, opened in 2008 at Avion Park, a mixed-use project near Tampa International Airport.
Punta Gorda/Charlotte Harbor
Devastated by Hurricane Charley in 2004, a new Punta Gorda downtown waterfront has been taking shape.
The new Charlotte Harbor Event & Conference Center held a soft opening in December. Built on the site of the smaller Memorial Coliseum damaged by Charley, it has 43,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 19,500-square-foot multipurpose hall.
Nearby is the 141-room Best Western Waterfront, which can handle groups up to 400. Next door, a 106-room Four Seasons by Sheraton is expected to open in April, replacing the Holiday Inn Harborside, which was demolished following Charley.
Also in the vicinity, the new Wyvern, a 63-room boutique hotel, opened in November, and a groundbreaking is slated this summer for a Hilton Garden Inn across from the Four Points.
Fort Myers
Less than 30 minutes away are the Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel, which offer such resorts as the Hyatt Coconut Point Resort & Spa, Sanibel Harbour Resort & Spa, South Seas Island Resort, Sundial Beach & Golf Resort, DiamondHead Beach Resort and Pink Shell Beach Resort & Spa.
Downtown Fort Myers will get its first new hotel in more than 20 years this month with the opening of the 62-room Hotel Indigo Fort Myers–Historic River District, less than half a mile from the city’s primary venue, the Harborside Event Center, which has 42,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space.
Naples
Moving south 30 miles, Naples offers 20 miles of beaches marketed by the Greater Naples, Marco Island and Everglades CVB.
The 85-room Hotel at Naples Bay Resort, which has 3,300 square feet of meeting space, opened in February 2008. It is part of the new 20-acre Naples Bay Resort, managed by Benchmark Hospitality International, on the Gordon River that also features condos and vacation cottages, a spa, a marina and yacht club, restaurants and shopping.
The Hilton Marco Island Beach Resort, which renovated its guest rooms and 12,000 square feet of meeting space in 2007, recently opened a 10,000-square-foot spa.
A SpringHill Suites by Marriott Naples with meeting space opened in December off I-75.
