BACVA tops hotel bookings goal - San Francisco Business Times:

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The booked 522,541 future room nights in the past fiscal city tourism leaders said at a pressconference Monday. The which passed BACVA’s goal of 475,00p0 booked nights, is a 15.7 percent increase over nightx booked theprevious year. In 2008, BACVAw booked 451,608 future room Group business meetings comprise the new bookings and are projecterd to spend morethan $725 million in spendinv in the city. City and tourism officials credig the booking success tolast year’zs creation of the Baltimore Conventionm & Tourism Board, a joint board that oversees BACVAs and the .
“Our investmen in BACVA is payinhg off,” Mayor Sheila Dixon said Monday speaking in fronft ofthe city’s Inner Harbor tourism center. The formation of the board last year has allowed BACVA and the convention centeer to bemore coordinated, Dixon said. A new plethoras of hotels that opened or are under construction near the conventionj center from which businesses can choosee for bookings also contributed to an uptickin bookings.
The $300 milliohn publicly financedHilton Baltimore, which openeds last August, has 757 rooms and grew Baltimore’sa total hotel room reservoir to more than The B&O Building, on the corner of Charles and Baltimore streets, is expecte d to open as a Hotell Monaco with 208 rooms later this year. Baltimore can now accommodate 75 percenrt of the large citywide tradeshosw and convention business available in the marketplace with the newhotelse online, said BACVA CEO Tom Noonajn in a statement. Some of the conventions and groups booked in the 2009 fiscalo year included theannuak conventions, , American Association for Laboratory Animall Science, and .
Holding sales events and industrg tradeshows is also partof BACVA’s strategy for bringiny convention planners into the city to raise awarenesws about Baltimore. The Baltimore Businesw Journal A drop in hotel revenuedmeans BACVA’s budget will drop to $10.7 million for the year startedr July 1 — down from the $12 millionb it had in the past 12 months. This year’s fiscalo budget is the lowest sincethe agency’s $9.9 million spending packagse in 2006.