October 21, 2007
Montgomery Advertiser
Hotel rooms to create demand for downtown
By Cosby Woodruff
Hotel and tourism leaders say that an extra 430 hotel rooms headed to downtown Montgomery next year won't create a glut of business-class lodgings in the area, but will actually help increase demand.
The Renaissance Montgomery Hotel and Spa at the Convention Center should open in February with 346 rooms and suites. Across the street, in the old Tuskegee Bank Building, a Hampton Inn & Suites will bring about 85 more rooms and suites when it opens in late spring or early fall.
Add in the 237 suites at Embassy Suites, across the street the other direction from the Renaissance, and the immediate area will have almost 670 rooms and suites in a three-block area.
Dawn Hathcock, vice president of the Montgomery Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the demand for upscale hotel rooms in downtown Montgomery is rising and should spike when the convention center opens next year.
Part of the Renaissance will be a spa, and that will bring travelers itself when there are no conventions, she said.
"That spa is going to be world class," she said. "It is going to be a great weekend getaway."
Ray Ezelle, director of marketing for the Renaissance, said the convention center would eventually generate enough business to fill all the downtown hotels on a regular basis.
Convention visitors, he predicted, would return to Montgomery for other business, helping fill hotels between conventions.
"Our goal is to create more demand for downtown Montgomery," Ezelle said. "When we have conventions, it will fill the Embassy and the Hampton and other hotels."
Ezelle said that will create what the hotel industry calls compression -- filling a hotel and pushing guests to other properties. For big gatherings, that compression could reach to the hotels near EastChase.
The Renaissance leadership believes that as more and more travelers visit Montgomery, they will find reasons to return, whether for other meetings, business or pleasure travel.
"We have to brand Montgomery as a new destination," Ezelle said.
The rebranding will include luring regional conventions from venues in other states as well as luring business travelers to stay in Montgomery when doing business in Montgomery.
John Tampa, who is developing the Hampton Inn, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Hathcock said her group has been told he has started renovating the old bank building into a hotel with 85 rooms and suites, but she did not know the room size or amenities.
The Renaissance is marketing itself as an upscale hotel with luxury-based rooms. Embassy Suites markets its rooms' size -- all are two-room suites -- and amenities.
Hathcock predicted there would be no shortage of travelers to fill the rooms at all three hotels.
"Supply and demand are both up," she said. "That shows we are growing our market."
The three hotels eventually will become key parts of a downtown entertainment district that includes the Riverwalk Amphitheatre, Riverwalk Stadium, Troy University's Davis Theatre for the Performing Arts and other venues.
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