Metro region gains bookings in ’06

The Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau says bookings for December 2006 were nearly twice as high as in 2005, bolstered by an increase in the number of hotel rooms in Providence and a refocusing of the bureau’s sales staff.
According to Martha Sheridan, president and CEO of the PWCVB, the sales staff last month booked 16,076 rooms – for dates as near as this winter and as far in the future as 2010. During the same period of 2005, they booked 8,610 rooms.
The December bookings also account for more than 40 percent of the bureau’s bookings in the first six months of its fiscal year. PWCVB, which runs on a July-June fiscal calendar, had booked 39,064 rooms through the end of December, compared with 36,369 rooms in the same period in fiscal 2006.
Sheridan and Neil Schriever, the PWCVB’s vice president of sales, said last week that Providence and Warwick have benefited from an increase in rooms. Downtown Providence in particular, they said, has become a stronger draw for meetings and conventions with the increased capacity that is slated to come online.
Providence currently has 1,726 hotel rooms, a number that soon will grow. Two projects slated to open this year –the new Renaissance Providence Hotel and an addition to The Westin Providence – will bring the city’s room count to 2,200. In addition, other hotel proposals could an extra 300 rooms.
According to Schriever, the availability of more rooms was key in bringing in MENC: the National Association for Music Education, a group that initially had rebuffed the opportunity to come to Providence.
“This group met with us several years ago,” he said, and really was reluctant to come back until more rooms came into the downtown market so they could consolidate their room blocks. But with the Westin and the Renaissance, they were able to do that, and it was attractive enough for them to be able to confirm with us for March 2009.”
Sheridan said that the Westin expansion, in particular, will be helpful in drawing in meetings and conventions from larger groups that wish to meet under one roof. Presently, with 364 rooms, the hotel cannot meet the demands of a group like the American Fire Sprinkler Association, she said. But the rooms that are coming online with the Westin’s second tower made it attractive to the group.
“It’s going up to 565 rooms,” she said. “That allowed them to consider the destination for their meeting. While they do have a few rooms that Westin could not accommodate, and they did need to use an overflow property, the fact that the Westin did expand considerably allowed them to consider us and in the end, book the destination.”
Why such sales strength in December?
According to Schriever, the last month of the year is a particularly strong month for meeting and convention bookings.
While the PWCVB works on a fiscal year schedule, the hotels largely work on a January-December calendar year, he said. The hotels, looking to produce strong numbers for the year, will generally step up their efforts at year’s end, working with the bureau to get as many rooms booked as possible.
Other factors play a role in the strength of December, Schriever said, and they aren’t necessarily specific to Rhode Island.
At many organizations, the boards of directors and site selection committees meet in the fall. By the time December rolls around, those panels are often ready to make decisions on where their groups will hold their meeting or convention. And the person in charge of booking the event may have more available time to do so, because of a less-strenuous workload around the holidays.
But Sheridan said another factor for the local strength of December
2006 versus December 2005 is the recognition that Providence has been receiving from the meetings and convention community.
“In general, the destination is becoming better known nationally as a viable meeting option for planners,” she said.