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Columbus has a smaller budget and fewer hotel rooms than other comparable cities What can it do to compete?
BY MARLA MATZER ROSEColumbus competes hard for conventions with cities such as Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Louisville and Kansas City. Some say that Columbus is in danger of not only losing new business, but also seeing some of its current business drift away.
In Columbus alone, convention and meeting groups brought in $2 billion in direct spending in 2007, along with $180 million in city and county tax revenue. In 2005, more than 142,000 full-time jobs were created in Columbus related to business travel and tourism, mostly at restaurants, tourist attractions and hotels.
Plans for a new convention hotel on land controlled by the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority have been on-again, off-again in recent years. The project awaits the blessing of the city and county, which would need to back the bonds used by the convention authority to help finance the project.
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Keeping the Convention Center competitive
By: Walker
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10 year tax abates for any new hotels built in downtown Columbus?
We’ve read this kind of article before– that no one knows Columbus and other cities don’t even consider us as competition.
So, Experience Columbus, get up off your fat lazy asses and make things happen. Sheeesh! Stop bitching and whining and start building hotels and other items that will build success. Sure money’s tight, but that is no excuse.
So, Experience Columbus, get up off your fat lazy asses and make things happen. Sheeesh! Stop bitching and whining and start building hotels and other items that will build success. Sure money’s tight, but that is no excuse.
Agreed. Problem in this town is people are afraid of taking a position and hurting other people’s feelings.
That proposed addition in the illustration makes the Hyatt look even more like an evil super-villain crime syndicate headquarters.
I think that design is now going on 10 years old…. likely time to refresh the design concept, but I think the city is really hurt by its hotel room deficit. Seems like City Center would make another good site for a large scale hotel…. keep the parking and redevelop it with a keen eye on urban friendly mixed use, another hotel as anchor…
I have high hopes for the Pizzuti boutique hotel here in the Short North. Hopefully, that will demonstrate that there is indeed a viable market here for higher end boutique hotels here in Columbus.
I have high hopes for the Pizzuti boutique hotel here in the Short North.
Me too- Pizzuti will do something cool.
While I have high hopes for the Pizzuti hotel as well, what we need are not high end boutique hotels, but huge hotels like the hyatt, with an abundance of rooms, not a bunch of uber cool hotels with 100 rooms each throughout the city.
I agree with you 100%. What annoys me is the fact that Columbus has known that they need more large hotels and still haven’t done anything about it.
I think you can have both. Big cool hotels and lots of cool boutiques. I heard plans for an ALoft here, but not sure what ever became of it. I think the nature of hotels and people’s expectations of hotels have changed drastically in the past 5 years. Just having a large hotel is not enough.
I’ve never been to Louisville, but the 21C hotel makes me want to go there.
Of course we can have both, and I would love to see us have a new large hotel along with multiple cool new boutique hotels. However, we NEED a large hotel that can hold enough people for conventions (500 rooms + i think?); the boutique hotels would just be cool, and bring our city to the next level, but only after we concentrate our efforts on bringing a new large hotel downtown. If a new boutique hotel happens to open, I will not be mad or upset, quite the contrary, but I do not want our city leaders to focus on trying to get a few small hotels developed.
Every city wants a piece of the convention pie. It leads to, as the article notes, an “arms race” requiring billions of investment that at the end of the day competitively leaves you not much better off from a relative position than you were before. These cities just keep playing leapfrog with facilities, hotels, etc.
A convention business is nice, but can’t be the centerpiece of a civic strategy outside of a handful of very unique locales.
Indianapolis is expanding its convention center to 750,000 sq. ft. Of course, next Nashville will be expanding to 1 million sq ft. And so it goes.
I think most people realize that we need some more hotel space in order to compete with larger venues/accomodations in other cities. However, you can’t expect the city to pick up the entire tab if we convince some hotel tycoon to put in a huge place that only gets filled a few times a year. Some of the other places mentioned have professional sports that help bring in a lot of visitors to their downtowns for almost the entire year. We’re doing better here in Columbus, and it’s steadily improving, but the Blue Jackets and the Crew just don’t bring in the types of crowds that pro football, pro basketball and pro baseball will bring in. Not that I’m advocating that we need different pro sports: Just drawing a conclusion from some of the other cities mentioned (Pittsburgh, Indy).
I agree that we need more hotel space, but we also have to do a better job of marketing other events that could bring other people into town: Not just conventions. It’s hard to market something like this, “Come stay in this huge cool hotel, because people from Columbus are really nice and we’ve got some fun bars in the Area District.” It’s getting there… patience grasshoppers…
A convention business is nice, but can’t be the centerpiece of a civic strategy outside of a handful of very unique locales.
Indianapolis is expanding its convention center to 750,000 sq. ft. Of course, next Nashville will be expanding to 1 million sq ft. And so it goes.
This seems to be Columbus’ stance: “Just screw it.” Keep talking about it, visiting Charlotte (and other cities) and wondering why they don’t consider Columbus any threat, coveting big conventions and their dollars, and frankly, crying about it all. I have no sympathy for Experience Columbus’ woes, any more than I have sympathy for my friends who bitch and cry about not being where they want to be in life when all they do is bitch and cry without bold action. This may be harsh, but it’s the truth: If you don’t get in the game, you can’t play the game. It’s a pitiful, inexcusable way of thinking. Way to go (again) Columbus.
The problem becomes a Field of Dreams issue… if you build it, will they come? I’d love to see Columbus host a national convention, or other huge event, but what do we do the other 364 days of the year? The Longaberger ladies and MARCON will only fill up so many rooms the rest of the year…
If we can’t promise more than one or two big conventions a year (if that), then a huge hotel is a huge money pit. I just don’t see the city as vastly underserved by hotels. Building something like that would be terribly risky.
Personally I think a boutique hotel would be a better preliminary build. I do think there is a market right now for chic hotel accomodations in Columbus.
If we can’t promise more than one or two big conventions a year (if that), then a huge hotel is a huge money pit. I just don’t see the city as vastly underserved by hotels. Building something like that would be terribly risky.
Personally I think a boutique hotel would be a better preliminary build. I do think there is a market right now for chic hotel accomodations in Columbus.
Ditto, ditto, ditto. We’re not going to attract and retain talent or worthwhile conventions for that matter with standard fare, giant cheeseball hotels. Birmingham, Alabama and Indianapolis, IN are getting Aloft hotels for god sakes. I’m not saying they’re the be all end of hotels, but it’s something. I’m always embarrassed to have clients/ associates come in and have them experience the hotel options we have in this city.
If we can’t promise more than one or two big conventions a year (if that), then a huge hotel is a huge money pit. I just don’t see the city as vastly underserved by hotels. Building something like that would be terribly risky.
Personally I think a boutique hotel would be a better preliminary build. I do think there is a market right now for chic hotel accomodations in Columbus.
See, this is where market economics works for you type of folks that get upset when corporations make huge sums of money. When a project goes bust, they are the ones that are going to take the loss, not the city government. Who cares if it goes bankrupt? The developer of the hotel, should have had a better analyst running the numbers. If the city has said they want to attract convention business, and the developer deems it profitable to do, then the city should provide the necessary tax incentives to do so. The city should not be laying out any money in terms of loans or grants for it though.
The city has repeatedly said it wants to attract convention business, so in order for it to occur we must have a larger hotel. This does not mean we should not have a second and third and fourth plan in case this does not work. What the city can not do is jump from this idea to another, and keep jumping around without ever pursuing a course of action. If this does not work we can try something else, but in my mind it will be a hell of a lot easier to attract 500 conventioniers than it would be to attract 500 people to stay in a hip hotel for 300 a night.
I’ve been out of town at least one night every week for the last 5 weeks. I can tell you I’m thrilled to pay $300/ night for a decent non-chain hotel without blinking an eye and I do. That’s on the low end. We shouldn’t build hotels here based on the local populations (or rural Ohio cities) willingness to pay. Especially if the intention is to attract events that fill up those rooms. People here tend to be cheap.
There is a trend in travel with young, mobile professionals to skip the big chains. Why would you try and attract something that is trending downward and in the past?
Boutique doesn’t have to mean fewer rooms.
If I’m assessing personal travel or making a decision to attend an out of town event I always start with the accommodations. The first place I go to find a hotel is Tablet Hotels. The second place I go is Trip Advisor. If a city doesn’t even show up on Tablet I usually skip it and dismiss it altogether.
you are having the wrong debate. The city has already decided to focus on attracting convetioniers, you are suggesting a completely different route. That is fine, but not what the city wants right now. Most travel for corporations is booked by the corporate travel agent anyway. Mostly these are going to be chains, most notably Starwood, a lot of people tend to stay at the W at Westin’s, and heck if you are high up the St. Regis. Maybe if you want to attract a cool hotel, you shuold try to get a Sofitel, or a W, or some other hotel along those lines.
See, this is where market economics works for you type of folks that get upset when corporations make huge sums of money. When a project goes bust, they are the ones that are going to take the loss, not the city government. Who cares if it goes bankrupt? The developer of the hotel, should have had a better analyst running the numbers. If the city has said they want to attract convention business, and the developer deems it profitable to do, then the city should provide the necessary tax incentives to do so. The city should not be laying out any money in terms of loans or grants for it though.
I’m probably the biggest capitalist you’ll ever meet, and I think your analysis is spot on. I think the issues are these: (1) Tax incentives amount to laying out money in the long run. It’s just a numbers game. Giving great tax breaks means that someone else has to assume the cost of infrastructure, etc… for that particular hotel. I’m not opposed to that, I’m just pointing out that there is no free lunch. (2) If a developer wanted to build a huge hotel in Columbus, I’m pretty sure that Columbus would have given them the tax incentives to do so by now. Hence, the dilemma. Obviously no one with the capital to invest yet thinks there is a market to sustain it. Which is why I think the ownership goes back to the city to drive tourism dollars by promoting or creating draws to the city. Like I said in an early post, it’s getting better. Personally, and this is a little tongue-in-cheek, I think it would help if the Convention Center wasn’t so damn hideous. It looks like a train-wreck where the box cars were loaded with pastel chalk. At least it is unique. (?)