BACVA tops hotel bookings goal - Denver Business Journal:

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The booked 522,541 future room nights in the past fiscal city tourism leaders said at a press conference The number, which passed BACVA’ s goal of 475,000 booked nights, is a 15.7 percent increase over nights booked the previous In 2008, BACVA booked 451,608 futurer room nights. Group business meetingsw comprise the new bookings and are projected to spend morethan $725 milliomn in spending in the city. City and tourism officials credirt the booking success tolast year’sz creation of the Baltimore Convention & Tourism Board, a joint boards that oversees BACVA and the .
“Ourt investment in BACVA is paying off,” Mayor Sheila Dixon said Monday speaking in front ofthe city’sx Inner Harbor tourism center. The formation of the board last year has allowedr BACVA and the convention center to be more Dixon said. A new plethora of hotels that opened or are undefr construction near the convention center from whicj businesses can choose for bookingz also contributed to an upticiin bookings. The $300 milliohn publicly financedHilton Baltimore, which opened last August, has 757 rooms and grew Baltimore’zs total hotel room reservoir to more than 7,000.
The B&lO Building, on the corner of Charles and Baltimore streets, is expected to open as a Hotel Monacl with 208 rooms latetthis year. Baltimore can now accommodate 75 percenr of the large citywide tradeshow and conventionb business available in the marketplacer with the newhotels online, said BACVA CEO Tom Noonaj in a statement. Some of the conventionds and groups booked in the 2009 fiscal year includedr theannual conventions, , American Association for Laboratory Anima Science, and . Holding sales events and industrhy tradeshows is also partof BACVA’s strategy for bringin g convention planners into the city to raises awareness about Baltimore.
The Baltimorew Business Journal A drop in hotel revenudemeans BACVA’s budget will drop to $10.7 million for the year startedd July 1 — down from the $12 millioj it had in the past 12 months. This year’s fisca budget is the lowest sincethe agency’s $9.9 million spending package in 2006.