This week it’s the 18th annual New England Mortgage Banking Conference. On Sept. 30, it’s the Fall Rhode Island RV Show. In November, there’s the 2005 Beer Show, immediately followed by the International Wire & Cable Symposium.
And then holiday parties, corporate events, big exhibitions and quirky small gatherings.
The calendar at the Rhode Island Convention Center is a hodgepodge of big and small, mainstream and esoteric events, with major conventions and trade shows more the exception than the rule – though they do happen regularly.
Selling Luxury Real Estate Requires More Than Exposure
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Private Office Advisor Engel & Völkers Oceanside www.DiSpiritoteam.com…
Learn More
Add in smaller gatherings at local hotels, and the diversity is even greater: Have you heard about the Whole Bead Show this weekend at the Holiday Inn? Newport, with its concentration of small and mid-sized venues, draws an equally eclectic mix, from gardeners to judges.
No, Rhode Island isn’t New York City, and even after all those extra Providence hotel rooms are finished, industry officials here say the state will still get most of its meetings and conventions business from small and mid-sized groups, not huge national entities.
“Our space isn’t gigantic,” said James P. McCarvill, executive director of the Rhode Island Convention Center Authority. “We’re not going to do 100,000 people.” In fact, the center’s Web site offers spaces for 10 to 9,000 people, and a large share of the events are in the hundreds.
So the people marketing the center – directly and through the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau – focus on the next tier: “We’re never going to do the American Hardware Association because they wouldn’t fit here, or the National Restaurant Association,” McCarvill said. “But we did do the International Association of Culinary Arts Professionals … and there’s a lot of (groups that size) around.”
Nationwide, a January report from the Brookings Institution showed, the meetings and conventions market has been stagnant, with major event attendance and space bookings down even as more and more cities upgrade their convention centers and build new ones.
The same phenomenon is playing out here: Within a short span, Providence has gained three new competitors: a second Boston convention center in addition to the Hynes, a new Hartford convention center, and now a new facility in Springfield, Mass.
“There’s more competition, but there’s no increase in the number of meetings being held,” said Neil Schriever, vice president of sales at the Providence Warwick convention bureau. As it is, event planners are booking less far in advance than before, he said, and the new options give them less of a sense of urgency about booking their space before it’s gone. In addition, the new facilities are pushing prices down.
“Sometimes new products tend to put together some really amazing financial deals, and we as a destination have provided great value and a great convention experience,” Schriever said. Some of those bookings may be lost, he said, because Rhode Island isn’t going to “devalue” its well-proven product “just to get business that is only looking at price.”
Asked how the new hotel rooms and the Dunkin’ Donuts Center renovation would affect the market, both Schriever and McCarvill said they expect they’ll draw larger and better events.
“We certainly feel that the future has every opportunity to brighten considerably,” said McCarvill. “I think in the future you’ll see an increase in both the quantity and the quality of the meetings and conventions coming here.”
“The Dunk is going to be a huge help to the destination,” Schriever said. The U.S. figure skating championships could return, and the NCAA Final Four tournament might be drawn here, he speculated. Plus the convention center and the Dunk could be sold together, as a package.
Meanwhile, at the Newport County Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, Martha Sheridan, vice president for sales, said a “soft” first quarter of 2005 has been more than offset by a strong summer and fall, and “we are certainly holding our own in the meetings market.”
With no large convention facility, the City by the Sea is all about small and mid-sized events, but by leveraging Newport’s resort appeal, local facilities attract a diverse clientele: from the 1st Circuit of the U.S. Courts (600 people at the Hyatt Regency), to the board of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, to the International Council on Monuments and Sites and – the biggest event in some time – the USGA’s 2006 Women’s Golf Open.
Like Schriever, Sheridan reported “a much shorter” booking window, “which makes it a bit of a challenge for our hotels to manage their room inventory,” especially since the peak meetings season is also the peak tourist season.
