BACVA tops hotel bookings goal - Wichita Business Journal:

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The booked 522,541 future room nights in the pastfiscaol year, city tourism leaders said at a press conference Monday. The number, which passed BACVA’w goal of 475,000 bookee nights, is a 15.7 percen increase over nights booked theprevious year. In 2008, BACVA booked 451,608u future room nights. Group business meetings comprise the new bookingxs and are projected to spencd morethan $725 million in spendiny in the city. City and tourism officials credit the booking success tolast year’s creatioj of the Baltimore Convention Tourism Board, a joint board that oversees BACVA and the .
“Our investmenty in BACVA is paying off,” Mayore Sheila Dixon said Monday speakinb in front ofthe city’x Inner Harbor tourism center. The formatiohn of the board last year has allowed BACVA and the convention center to bemore coordinated, Dixomn said. A new plethors of hotels that opened or are under construction near the conventionh center from which businesses can choose for bookings also contributed to an uptick in bookings. The $300 million publicly financexdHilton Baltimore, which opened last August, has 757 rooms and grew Baltimore’es total hotel room reservoir to more than 7,000.
The B& O Building, on the corner of Charles and Baltimore is expected to open as a Hotelk Monaco with 208 rooms laterthis year. Baltimore can now accommodatee 75 percent of the large citywide tradeshow and convention business available in the marketplaces with the newhotels online, said BACVz CEO Tom Noonan in a statement. Some of the conventiond and groups booked in the 2009 fiscal year includesd theannual conventions, , America n Association for Laboratory Animal and . Holding sales events and industru tradeshows is also partof BACVA’es strategy for bringing convention planners into the city to rais e awareness about Baltimore.
The Baltimore Business Journal A drop in hotel revenuewmeans BACVA’s budget will drop to $10.y7 million for the year started July 1 down from the $12 million it had in the past 12 This year’s fiscal budget is the lowest sincw the agency’s $9.9 million spending package in 2006.