Any city seeking to boost its status as a meetings destination certainly needs to have a good facilities package in place, and that often means adding a convention center or major hotel to the lineup. Sometimes it can also be achieved with an outstanding new sports arena or by the emergence of a new industry.
The following cities are rising Southern stars, each one making the most of its unique attributes to strengthen its group appeal.
Arlington, Texas
Bait for booking meetings groups doesn’t get much better for a city than the addition of a billion-dollar sports stadium. Just ask Jay Burress, president and CEO of the Arlington CVB.
When the new Cowboys Stadium opened in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex last year, hopes were high for the business it would bring to the region. Expectations, according to Burress, have been exceeded even in a down economy. And they are sure to reach a crescendo when Super Bowl XLV occurs there next February.
"It’s unbelievable what the new stadium has done for our city and our meetings and tourism product," Burress says. "It’s given us exposure to new markets, gotten the name of Arlington out there where it didn’t exist before and put us into national level markets. People now know there is an Arlington, Texas. And they now know we have a convention center."
He adds that corporate and national association groups are now more of a marketing focus for the city than they used to be.
The new Texas-size stadium has a lot of everything, including 90,000 seats and 300,000 square feet of meeting and event space, 10 times what its imploded predecessor, Texas Stadium, offered. Included are 300 dazzling suites on five levels.
The stadium is climate-controlled and has a retractable roof that opens or closes in 12 minutes. And there’s plenty of buzz about the gigantic video board spanning the distance between its 20-yard lines.
Cowboys Stadium complements Arlington’s meetings-ready package, which includes the Arlington Convention Center, with 100,000 square feet of function space, over 5,000 hotel rooms, a 10-mile proximity to DFW International Airport and an epicenter location in the Metroplex. It also adds to Arlington’s reputation as the entertainment hub of the Metroplex, joining a lineup that includes Texas Rangers Ballpark of Arlington; Six Flags Over Texas amusement park; International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame; and Hurricane Harbor waterpark.
Groups have a variety of venues in the new Cowboys Stadium for events and meetings, including several clubs, lounges, end zones and the field itself.
"Events on the field and in the team’s locker room have been most popular to date," Burress says, adding that end zone platforms that can host up to 1,500 people for receptions are also popular.
To augment its meetings appeal, the Arlington CVB is offering booking incentives to groups through the end of the year that include complimentary use of the convention center and discounts at various event venues, including Cowboys Stadium. Meeting packages include elements such as team building on the fields of both the Cowboys Stadium and the Rangers Ballpark and VIP bowling experiences with pro bowlers at the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame.
Chattanooga, Tenn.
Although it’s been a popular leisure travel destination for decades, drawing about 3 million visitors annually, Chattanooga is fairly new as a serious player in the meetings arena.
The city expanded the Chattanooga Convention Center a few years ago, resulting in a facility boasting 312,000 square feet of exhibit and meeting spaces, including six ballrooms.
"We pair this with 2,000 hotel rooms downtown and 7,000 more within 15 minutes of the center," says Steve Genovesi, vice president of sales and marketing for the Chattanooga Area CVB. "Attendees enjoy walking our compact downtown and our free electric shuttle, which makes dine-arounds a great program option."
The city’s location positions it within two hours of both Atlanta and Nashville, making it a great central meeting point for people in the Southeast, he adds.
While SMERF and association groups are a market staple for Chattanooga, the city is now targeting a new sector that can benefit from the city’s growing presence in the engineering industry.
"Our top markets include the engineering industry," Genovesi says. "We are a hub for the Tennessee Valley Authority and Volkswagen is opening a new plant here next year. Also, the University of Tennessee’s SimCenter National Center for Computational Engineering is bringing in people who work on next-generation computer technologies for industry."
Chattanooga’s new message to meeting planners concerns hotels in this scenic city on the bluffs.
"Our biggest challenge is getting planners to consider us because we don’t have 1,000 rooms in one hotel," Genovesi says. "But we ask them to consider that everything can be on one level, and our bureau housing service can make everything easy within three to four hotels near the convention center. Staying in more than one hotel helps with attrition issues after all, and attendees do like choices."
The downtown district has a nice array of restaurants, too, he adds, with many emphasizing locally sourced food, as does the convention center itself.
"We believe we are the only convention center in the country that provides farm-to-table fresh food," Genovesi says. "We have a local farm that allots several acres to growing product just for the convention center."
Chattanooga’s Civil War history and natural attractions are well known, like Ruby Falls on historic Lookout Mountain, where something new has been added for team building and recreation. That’s the Ruby Falls ZIPstream Aerial Adventure, a treetops course that allows participants to move through a series of fun, exciting and challenging tree-to-tree activities.
Mobile Bay, Ala.
With over three centuries of colorful history under its belt, Alabama’s Mobile Bay region has entered a new era that includes a robust renaissance in downtown Mobile and a dynamic meetings market.
"We are maybe one of the few destinations that benefitted from the AIG Effect that spun out of the recession," says Stacy Hamilton, vice president of marketing and communications for the Mobile Bay CVB. "Nobody gets grief for meeting here, so it helped us a lot and brought in quality groups we normally wouldn’t see. We’re very affordable and well equipped for meetings. What people find here is a resort atmosphere without the negative profile."
Hamilton adds that the Arthur G. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center has 217,000 square feet of space that is supported by 1,100 hotel rooms downtown.
Groups that have booked Mobile in recent times enjoyed a safe and vibrant downtown with nightlife that includes plenty of live music venues. Second Friday art walks to downtown art galleries are also popular with locals and visitors alike.
There are the unique attractions as well. The Mobile Carnival Museum (Mobile was the site of the New World’s first Mardi Gras in 1703) and the USS Alabama battleship continue to be visitor magnets. Bellingrath Gardens & Home is a world-famous visitor stop. And golfers find a lot to love in Mobile Bay, which offers the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, where greens fees are easy on the pocketbook.
Mobile’s appeal to the youth sports and religious meetings markets remains in place, while medical groups are among the newer market sectors discovering this city on the bay.
"We had four medical groups out of D.C. and Chicago last year who had never been to Mobile," Hamilton says. " They fell in love with the weather, the culture and our food. Two of the groups are coming back."
For those who really want the resort atmosphere, there’s the Grand Hotel Marriott Resort, Golf Club & Spa on Mobile Bay. The historic site has recently completed a major renovation of its 406 guest rooms, restaurant, tennis complex and other features.
Wilmington, N.C.
As one of North Carolina’s premier historic landmarks, Wilmington Cape Fear Coast has the charm of a riverfront location with heritage that dates back to 1729. With over 230 square blocks of historic sites, Wilmington is the center of a resort destination that is seeking to fill off-season dates with group business.
Later this year, the city is opening the Wilmington Convention Center. Offering 107,000 square feet of space on the riverfront, the facility will include 30,000 square feet of exhibit space and a 12,000-square-foot ballroom. The new center will also feature green design elements, with the goal of achieving LEED certification.
According to John Sneed, convention sales manager for the Wilmington Cape Fear Coast CVB, the city has meeting spaces in individual hotel properties but has had to limit its group hosting capacity to about 300 people.
"Several state associations were going out of state for coastal locations, so the city saw an opportunity in bringing a facility that can hold larger groups," Sneed says, adding that the new center will enable Wilmington to handle groups of up to 2,000 people.
"We have the sleep space—about 9,000 rooms in the county with more coming—and lots of wonderful restaurants," he says. "We believe the center will equip us to achieve our objections during the cooler months."
Regional and state association groups remain target markets, he adds.
Booking incentives based on room nights are in place for groups, and they include discounts on the convention center and transportation.
Set to debut next spring in downtown Wilmington is a 125-room Courtyard by Marriott, which will have meeting space for small groups. A 191-room Hilton Garden Inn, which includes a ballroom accommodating up to 350 people, is slated to open in mid 2011 at the north end of the Carolina Beach Boardwalk.
The Hilton Wilmington Riverside, which has 272 guest rooms and 20,000 square feet of meeting space, recently completed renovations of its grand ballroom.
Wilmington’s historic downtown is accessible by a riverwalk that will connect the new convention center to several hotels, about 50 restaurants and an array of boutiques and gift shops. Walking and trolley tours are popular among visitors as are horse-drawn carriage rides. They pass Wilmington’s various movie and television locations and the USS North Carolina battleship docked on the riverfront.
Other popular group attractions include the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher in Kure Beach and the Burchetta Glassblowing Studio & Gallery.
