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Posted Apr 2, 2007, 12:41 PM
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Witty comment fail
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Prattville, Alabama
Posts: 2,902
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Quote:
Hotel guru works to attract conventions
By Paul W. Sullivan
Montgomery Advertiser
Convincing meeting planners to associate Montgomery with conventions like they would Coke and soft drinks is the daunting challenge facing Ray Ezelle, sales and marketing director for the city's new hotel and convention center.
"We are trying to brand Montgomery as a convention destination," Ezelle said. "We are trying to change the perception of Montgomery."
At stake are millions of dollars in tax revenue and income for hotels, restaurants and businesses small and large. And Ezelle, the veteran of many a convention booking calendar, believes he and his new team will win the word association game and the city will reap the benefits for generations to come.
Director of sales Carolyn Dwyer and Ezelle have more than 27 years of hotel reservation sales experience. Former WAKA-TV anchor Monica Allen joins them today as part of the sales team.
Ezelle has faith in what his team is selling. He believes Montgomery's history as the birthplace of the Civil War and the civil rights movement is unequalled. That appeal, coupled with the ornate offerings of the new Renaissance Montgomery Hotel & Spa at the Convention Center, which is set to open in February, make Montgomery unique.
"This will be the convention city in the South -- especially for second- and third-tier Southern cities," Ezelle says. "This is not going to be the typical downtown convention hotel. This is going to be the impetus that changes downtown Montgomery."
Ezelle views himself and his team as not just filling beds and meeting rooms, but as altering the future of Montgomery for decades to come. He believes the new hotel and conference center will "create demand for Montgomery that has never existed before."
"My job is to increase the tax base in Montgomery," Ezelle said. "The convention center and hotel will be the economic engine that will help make Montgomery stronger. It's exciting."
With a lead time of less than a year in the convention sales business, Ezelle and his staff have been operating out of a temporary office on Bell Street. They have been busy working the phones, shaking hands and giving prospects hard-hat tours of the convention center site as well as a sneak peek at a mockup of an actual hotel room.
The standard suite produces a "Wow!" reaction from convention prospects, according to Dwyer. She says the rooms are more spacious than most and sport a flat-screen TV, a workstation for a plug-in laptop, and a separate bathtub and shower.
The city's competitors for the millions of dollars that come with filling those rooms, baseball game seats and booths at restaurants are Nashville and Chattanoga, Tenn., Little Rock, Ark., Tallahassee, Fla., Louisville, Ky., Jackson, Miss., and other "second and third tier" Southern cities.
Ezelle said the question he faces is "Why Montgomery?" He said his comeback is easy. "Montgomery has a rich history. And the strength of the facility is that we have the hotel, the convention center, the performing arts center and the garage all under one roof."
The convention center and hotel, which was projected to cost $157 million, will boast more than 103,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space and a 14,000-square-foot ballroom on the main level. A performing arts theater in the center will seat 1,800 and an upscale restaurant will face Commerce Street.
There will be 347 rooms on 10 levels of the 12-story building. Six levels of parking will provide 600 spaces. At the top, the deck will include a 9,000 square-foot European style spa, a fitness center, a pool and fountains. Circling the top deck will be a running track.
The complex is inspired by the Plaza Hotel in New York and has as its theme "Montgomery's New Front Porch." The massive structure inspires confidence in Ezelle and elicits amazement from those seeing what the finished facility will look like.
"People are extremely surprised we are going to have this quality of hotel in Montgomery," Ezelle said. "The entire Southeast can be proud of this type of property in a second- or third-tier city."
Ezelle says the response from those meeting planners searching for the perfect site has been good.
"We have some good business on the books, and we have got a tremendous amount of business in the funnel we are attempting to close," he said. "February and March look pretty good based on the business we are looking to close."
He and Dwyer said they had a good mix of in-state and out-of-state reservations and were working on bookings for 2009 and 2010.
Among the first groups to say "yes" to Ezelle was the National Alumni Council of the United Negro College Fund. About 350 members of the council will be the first to hold a convention in the center, according to Dawn Hathcock of the Chamber of Commerce. The gathering is set for Feb. 11-14, Hathcock said.
While some have worried that the new rooms downtown will hurt other hotels, Hathcock said the opposite is true. She said Montgomery is competing for groups that are so large that the overflow from the Renaissance will help fill other nearby hotels.
She said the chamber has identified agencies and other large groups who may be interested in Montgomery. The chamber then contacts those groups and later provides the contact information on those interested in the city to Ezelle's staff, as well as other hotels, depending on the size of the group.
"The interest in the new convention center is definitely there and the word is out that we are going to have a world-class facility and great hotel here," Hathcock said. "The meetings we are going after that we have not been able to pursue before are large enough that they will use more than just the new hotel, they will overflow to some of the other downtown hotels -- the Embassy Suites and the Hampton Inn. It's like dropping a pebble in the water and the ripple effect."
Dwyer said the exposure Montomgery and Alabama will receive from the new visitors could help promote more economic development.
"Once we get groups here and they see the beauty of the state, friendliness of the people and the hotel, we feel we will be able to rebook many of our groups," he said. "People also may see this area as a great place to retire or a corporate executive may say 'we need to invest in Montgomery.' "
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Exactly. The layout itself says nothing "smartgrowth" about it. It's going to be a nice typical "suburban" neighborhood, but the "smartgrowth" label is somewhat misleading in its' current layout.
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