From Baltimore down through Maryland’s Eastern Shore, with its Chesapeake Bay, Atlantic coasts and beach-lined Ocean City, a diverse range of waterfront meetings opportunities awaits groups heading to this maritime-rich region of Maryland.
With its celebrated Inner Harbor, foot-friendly Baltimore began revitalizing in the early 1980s. Even now its renaissance continues, adding to a long list of selling points.
Whether planners choose the urban flair of Baltimore or the quiet solitude of one of the Eastern Shore’s intimate towns, attendees will feel at ease in this inviting corner of the Old Line State.
Baltimore
"Charm City" has been busy polishing its appeal for groups. Earlier this year, the city launched a new free downtown shuttle system, while a new short-term meetings and conventions incentive program is under way, and it has been booking an impressive roster of industry gatherings that will give it additional exposure to planners.
"We have lots of big solid hotels. Now we’re finishing out our downtown hotel package with new boutique hotels that make this an even more attractive destination," says Tom Noonan, president and CEO of Visit Baltimore.
"We can compete for larger citywides," he says, explaining that in the past few years 33 percent more hotel rooms have been added. "Our capacity used to be 2,500 to 3,000 peak night room nights. Now it’s 5,000 to 5,500."
Adjoining the Inner Harbor to the west is the 1.2 million-square-foot Baltimore Convention Center, flanked to its west by Camden Yards, home of baseball’s Orioles and nearby, the NFL Ravens M&T Stadium. To the north, Inner Harbor merges into City Center.
Connected to the center is the 757-room Hilton Baltimore Convention Center, which opened in August 2008 and spurred downtown competitors to undergo major facelifts. It received the AAA Four Diamond award for 2010 for the first time. Also connected to the center are the Sheraton Inner Harbor and the Hyatt Regency Baltimore. In total, 3,400 guest rooms are within three blocks of the center, and 5,000 are within a mile of it.
Such high-energy retail, dining and entertainment complexes as Harborplace and Power Plant fringe the Inner Harbor, which boasts the Baltimore National Aquarium, the Maryland Science Center, with its IMAX theater and planetarium, and the Baltimore Maritime Museum, featuring historic vessels. Three of the city’s 70-plus off-site venue options are the aquarium, hosting receptions for up to 2,500, the Science Center, accommodating events of up to 1,500, and the Baltimore Maritime Museum, holding groups of up to 170.
Three new hotels—conversions of historic buildings—opened last year: Kimpton Hotels’ 202-room Hotel Monaco, with 6,200 square feet of meeting space; the 68-room Holiday Inn Express Downtown; and the 96-room Quality Inn Downtown.
Hotel Monaco is set in the B&O Railroad building, which dates to 1906, the Holiday Inn Express is situated in a bank building built in 1924, and the Quality Inn occupies the old Title Building.
The city also welcomed its first LEED-certified hotel last June with the opening of the 154-room Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott-Inner Harbor. And the historic 29-room Hotel Brexton reopened in February following a restoration.
While the development of a slew of properties is on hold or delayed, two notable projects expected to open in 2011 are still under construction: Hotel Indigo and a Four Seasons.
"Our hotel occupancies have taken a hit. That’s our challenge," Noonan says, adding that the city’s neighborhoods have become even easier to get around.
The city has recently been making much of its tagline, "In Baltimore you’re two feet away from everything," promoting that almost everything a delegate would want is within walking distance.
Transportation is also improving. In January, the city launched the first of three routes of the Charm City Circulator, a new free eco-friendly shuttle bus system. The new Orange Route, running between Hollins Market and Harbor East, includes the convention center. Two routes begin in spring: the Purple Route, linking Federal Hill and Penn Station and also including the convention center, and the Green Route, running from Harbor East and Fells Point to Johns Hopkins Hospital.
With a fleet of 21 hybrid electric buses and a 10-minute frequency daily, the service is designed to connect with light rail, Amtrak and MARC trains, the subway and water taxi services, which stop at attractions such as Fort McHenry, made famous during the War of 1812.
The Baltimore Area Convention & Visitors Association (BACVA), which changed its sales and marketing name to Visit Baltimore in June last year, launched two incentive programs in January that Noonan says has attracted lots of interest.
For meetings booked before June 30 with at least 1,000 room nights and occurring by Dec. 31, 2012, the group receives a $1,000 professional development credit that can be used for an industry-related event, accreditation or membership dues. Also, the group is eligible for a 4 percent rebate off the master account at 15 participating hotels.
Early this year, the Salt Lake CVB joined Visit Baltimore and the Fort Worth CVB in a sales partnership formed in 2007 that aims to sign groups to multiyear, multicity contracts. Each city devotes a sales manager to selling all three.
According to Noonan, the addition of Salt Lake City rounds out the East Coast/Midwest/West Coast partnership.
The new agreement led to bookings by SAGES, a worldwide surgeons group, which will bring 2,500 attendees to Baltimore in 2013 and Salt Lake City in 2014.
Also, Fort Worth’s sales team was instrumental in Baltimore booking the 2011 inaugural launch of the Americas Incentive, Business Travel and Meetings Exhibition (AIBTM), a first-time Reed Travel Exhibitions global event.
Other industry gatherings are helping put Baltimore more squarely on the meetings and conventions map.
In March last year, for example, ASAE’s healthcare conference was held at the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor, and the Pharmaceutical Meeting Management Forum took place at the convention center. Tradeshow Week’s Fastest 50 was held at Hilton Baltimore Convention Center in November 2008. And in July, Baltimore will host the Convention Industry Council’s CMP Conclave.
In the fiscal year that ended June 30 last year, Visit Baltimore booked 522,541 future meeting and convention room nights, a 15.7 percent increase over those booked the previous fiscal year. It was the fifth consecutive year of increased year-over-year bookings.
According to Visit Baltimore’s fiscal year-end report last July, Baltimore was the first destination to generate 3,000 Twitter followers. It had also launched the Certified Tourism Ambassadors Program and trained more than 730 frontline employees during the year.
Between April and July, it had "Expect the Unexpected" under way, a new print magazine advertising campaign to attract visitors from new geographic markets farther away, including southern New England, Ohio, Virginia and the Carolinas. Previously, its leisure advertising focused on regional cities within a close drive.
Eastern and Atlantic Shores
Travel from Annapolis over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and you are on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, a rural world of historic towns, coves and inlets, water activities and retreat properties.
In Queenstown, not far from the bridge, the 86-room, Marriott-operated Aspen Wye River Conference Center has 7,400 square feet of conference space and outdoor team-building activities.
Farther south, Talbot County is home to the waterfront Chesapeake communities of St. Michaels, Oxford, Tilghman Island and Easton, the county seat.
Dubbed "The Hamptons of the Chesapeake Bay," it has more than a dozen properties offering meeting space—a handful of brand-name hotels and the remainder mostly historic inns.
"We really rock when it comes to incredible restaurants and crab fests," says Debbi Dodson, director of the Talbot County Office of Tourism. "We have lots of boating opportunities, kayaking, fishing and cruises, with the largest holding 100 people. We also have three golf courses and six bike trails."
Easton is celebrating its 300th birthday this year. A kickoff parade will be held in April. The anniversary theme will be tied into annual festivities and will culminate in a formal event Nov. 4, the date in 1710 when it officially became a town.
The county’s largest meetings property, the Harbourtowne Golf Resort and Conference Center in St. Michaels, features 11,000 square feet of meeting space and a Pete Dye-designed golf course.
Another meetings property, the 103-room Tidewater Inn in Easton, came under new ownership last October and has been undergoing renovations. It has opened a new restaurant, Hunters’ Tavern, and May 1 it will reopen its remodeled Gold Room banquet hall and an extended lobby.
Cambridge, 17 miles south of Easton, is the site of the waterfront, 425-room Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Golf Resort, Spa and Marina, which boasts 35,000 square feet of meeting space, including an 11,200-square-foot ballroom, an 18-hole championship course, a spa, a waterpark, a marina and a wildlife refuge.
Inland along route 50 lies Salisbury, with 1,800 hotel rooms, the largest municipality in Maryland’s lower Eastern Shore and the seat of Wicomico County.
Close to the boundaries of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, Wicomico County promotes "Discover Delmarva’s Hidden Treasures."
"We’re close to the beaches without beach prices," says Michelle Wainwright, group travel and convention manager at the Wicomico County CVB. "We have a great park system and great local shopping. Sports is a big market for our area and is growing."
Salisbury’s multipurpose Wicomico Youth & Civic Center, the primary facility, includes a 6,500-seat arena and 30,000 square feet of event space with 12 breakout rooms.
A handful of hotels have meeting space, including the 155-room Holiday Inn Salisbury Downtown, with more than 7,000 square feet.
Among the county’s sports complexes, the Crown Sports Center has a range of indoor facilities, function rooms and corporate team-building programs. Other off-site venue choices include the Bordeleau Winery, the Salisbury Zoo, the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art and the Fountains Wedding & Conference Center, which can handle banquets for 420 people.
Thirty minutes east of Salisbury, Ocean City is an 11-mile-long, beach-lined barrier island fronting the Atlantic Ocean. It has three miles of boardwalk, 10,000 hotel rooms and 25,000 condo and rental units.
Its largest group venue—the 185,000- square-foot Roland E. Powell Convention Center—delivers a 45,000-square-foot exhibit hall, a 22,000-square-foot ballroom and 25 meeting rooms.
According to Fred Wise, director of sales and marketing for the Ocean City CVB, the city’s average occupancy and hotel revenues were up slightly last year over 2008, although visitor spending has been down.
"We’re a drive destination, which has been an advantage," he says. "With association and corporate group business down, we went after sports and cheerleader groups and the youth religious market, for which we are perfect."
Among its properties with plentiful meeting space are the Clarion Resort Fontainebleau, Princess Royale Oceanfront Hotel and Conference Center, Carousel Resort Hotel & Condominiums and Holiday Inn Oceanfront. Its newest hotel, Courtyard by Marriott Ocean City, with 1,850 square feet of meeting space, opened last summer.
After being put on hold last year, plans for a convention center expansion moved ahead early this year when the state approved paying half the cost of the $4.8 million first phase, which includes expanding the ballroom from 22,000 to 40,000 square feet. A proposed second phase includes a new 1,250-seat auditorium.
"It’s exciting," Wise says. "We’ve been working on this for three years and now we’re moving to the design stage. There is demand for the new space from our existing clients."
—Tony Bartlett has been covering the travel trade industry for more than 20 years.
