Hotel, Destination, Technology Updates

Hyatt Place Debuts Two New Hotels

A little more than three years the first Hyatt Place hotel opened, the brand has announced the opening of its 150th hotel, Hyatt Place Charleston Airport/Convention Center. Owned by South Carolina-based Naman Hotels, the hotel offers 127 guestrooms and 1,000 square feet of meeting space. It is located less than two miles away from Charleston International Airport and adjacent to the Charleston Area Convention Center, which offers nearly 80,000 square feet of exhibit space.

Additionally, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Presidio Hotel Group and Crescent Hotels announced the opening of Hyatt Place UC Davis, the first hotel to be located on the UC Davis campus. It features 75 guestrooms and 1,200 square feet of meeting space. (www.hyattplace.com)

Kimpton Opens New Chicago Property

Kimpton’s new Hotel Palomar Chicago, an art-themed addition to the company’s Windy City collection, is located in the city’s vibrant River North neighborhood.  The hotel began welcoming guests on March 24. The 261-room, pet-friendly hotel offers 5,800 square feet of event space, including a 2,400 square-foot ballroom and a separate pre-function area.

A first for the Kimpton brand, the hotel features a green roof, joining a city-wide eco-friendly initiative. Covered with grass and vegetation, the green roof helps to improve air quality, clean and retain rainwater, and add beauty to the urban landscape.  The Hotel Palomar Chicago was built with sustainability in mind, and operates with more than 70 eco-friendly practices as part of Kimpton’s brand-wide EarthCare program. (www.hotelpalomar-chicago.com)

Pacific Beachcomer Adds Maitai Rangiroa

Pacific Beachcomber S.C. has added the 38-bungalow Maitai Rangiroa to its portfolio. Located on one of the largest lagoons in the Southern Hemisphere and a one-hour flight from Tahiti, the recently rebranded resort offers quick access to one of the top five dive destinations in the world.

Sustainable development is the keynote of Pacific Beachcomber’s projects and all resorts within the company’s portfolio are Green Globe certified.

Pacific Beachcomber’s next resort project is The Brando, a luxury eco-resort featuring 47 deluxe bungalow villas scheduled to open in 2012 on the eponymous actor’s remote private island, ten minutes by air from Tahiti. The project will be constructed to the requirements of environmental design and will be fully self sustaining with renewable sources of non-fossil energy.  (www.hotelmaitai.com)

Embassy Suites Cincinnati RiverCenter Unveils Ballroom

The Embassy Suites Cincinnati RiverCenter has announced the opening of itsr new City View Ballroom, offering views of downtown Cincinnati. Opening April 15, 2010, the City View Ballroom will feature one entire wall of windows, and will accommodate up to 125 guests (banquet style.) The Room can be seamlessly combined with the adjoining Captains View room, which will accommodate up to 175 guests and have the added benefit of a spacious outdoor patio. The completion of the ballroom gives the hotel 2,500 square feet of new event space. (http://embassysuites1.hilton.com/)

Broadmoor Renovations Underway

Despite the downturn in the economy, The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colorado is continuing renovations that began in December, 2009, with three projects totaling $7.5 million taking place in Broadmoor West and West Tower. Part of the renovations include work on the Broadmoor West meeting rooms, with the addition of four new meeting / conference rooms and a new pre-function area with a custom designed break area. All existing meeting rooms are being redone to include new ceiling mounted video projectors and dropdown video screens. The public areas, corridors and restrooms have been completely renovated and all meeting space in Broadmoor West now has new ceilings, lighting, wall covering, carpet, millwork and trim. (www.broadmoor.com)

Hyatt Regency Aruba Resort & Casino Earns Green Globe Certification

The Hyatt Regency Aruba Resort & Casino has become the first “Green Globe Certified” High Rise resort on Palm Beach. The Caribbean resort, which sits on 12 beachfront acres on the northwest coast of Aruba, received the prestigious Silver Status under the Green Globe Earthcheck Certification program, the premier international certification alliance for sustainable travel and tourism. (www.aruba.hyatt.com/)

Emory Conference Center Hotel Expansion Achieves LEED Silver Status

The Emory Conference Center Hotel (ECCH) has earned a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) silver certification by the U.S. Green Building Council for its new addition. The Hotel & Conference Center is part of the Emory University campus.

The five-story building was rated LEED silver for its sustainable components incorporated into the structure’s design and construction. Those environmentally-friendly elements include being a sustainable site providing connectivity to alternative transportation, water efficiency, the recycling and reuse of building materials and resources, indoor environmental air quality and innovation in design.

The new addition to ECCH includes a five-story structure that connects to the existing building by a bridge and houses 127 new guest rooms, 6,000 square feet of additional meeting space, Wisteria Lanes — a six-lane bowling alley. The added guestrooms and meeting space allows ECCH to offer a total of 325 guestrooms and 32,000 square feet of meeting space. (www.emoryconferencecenter.com)

Destinations

Seven Destination Marketing Organizations Attain Industry Accreditation

Seven additional destination marketing organizations (DMOs) have achieved accreditation from the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program (DMAP). They are: Anaheim/Orange County VCB (California, USA); Hershey/Harrisburg Regional CVB, Hershey (Pennsylvania, USA); Indianapolis CVA (Indiana, USA)*; LaPorte County CVB (Indiana, USA)*; San Antonio CVB (Texas, USA); Visit Topeka, Inc. (Kansas, USA); and Washington County Visitors Association (Oregon, USA). (*Renewed accreditation)

“The DMAP brand continues to expand, strengthening its visibility worldwide,” said Michael D. Gehrisch, president & CEO of DMAI.  “Accredited DMOs can now be found in more than 70% of the United States (35 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) as well as in Canada and Europe.  With DMOs holding themselves to a higher standard, meeting planners and travelers alike can rest assured that their business is in good hands.”

To become accredited a DMO is required to provide evidence of compliance with 54 mandatory standards and 33 voluntary standards. The standards set by DMAP cover a wide variety of topics including governance, finance, management, human resources, technology, visitor services, group services, sales, communications, membership, brand management, destination development, research/market intelligence, innovation, and stakeholder relationships.
 
Miami-Dade County Promotes Opportunities

A delegation of Miami area officials and executives met in New York in late March to talk about the global “Miami: Where Worlds Meet” marketing campaign.

The “Miami: Where Worlds Meet” campaign targets both consumers and industry, including meeting planners and site selectors who advise companies on where to locate businesses. The initiative focuses on six primary areas of commerce: life sciences/biomedical, fashion design and architecture, aviation and aerospace, financial services, technology and tourism. (www.MiamiWhereWorldsMeet.com)

Queenstown Becomes Popular Conference & Incentive Destination

AIME 2010 (the Asia Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo) reported that Queenstown’s popularity is continuing to grow as a conference and incentive (C&I) destination. Queenstown Convention Bureau Manager Kylie Brittain said, “There has been an obvious recovery in the market and things appear to becoming more buoyant. We continued to see a good number of Australian buyers this year; however, there was also a revival in interest from the longer haul segments, particularly from Asia and the United States. The resort has fantastic appeal to the C&I market because of our international airport, high quality accommodation and conference venues and exciting group activities.”

Ms Brittain said AIME has generated a number of strong leads, noting, “The corporate market is very lucrative and is a great revenue booster for Queenstown and it isn’t seasonally dependent. We are putting a lot of effort into growing the C&I sector.”

Now in its 18th year, AIME is a two-day expo, which attracted 700 exhibitors from 50 countries with 3500 hosted buyers and visitors when it was held in Melbourne in mid-March.

Automation

Online Event Management Firm Hits Five Million in Registrations

Acteva, which specializes in event management solutions, has announced that they have now processed more than 5 million registrations online. The company promotes itself as the first company to enter into the online registration and ticketing payment management services with their initial customer in 1998. Acteva also handles payment management, learning registration and class management services and – more recently – social networking, by offering tools to help customers communicate 24/7, manage events of all sizes and engage with customers before, during and after events. (www.Acteva.com)

StarCite Awarded U.S. Patent

StarCite, Inc., a provider of Web-based solutions to strategically manage corporate meetings and events, announced that it has been awarded U.S. Patent No. 7,523,385, entitled “System and Method for Enterprise Event Marketing and Management Automation” by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This patent provides StarCite with exclusive rights to its automated attendee registration and management technology solution.

Prior to the advent of StarCite’s attendee management automation platform, the process of managing attendees at corporate meetings required a significant amount of manual administration and data collection by meeting planners. StarCite’s newly-patented technology enables meeting planners to, among other things, set up customizable registration pages for each meeting, ensures clear and transparent communication about activities, confirmations and logistics with meetings attendees, and captures all attendee data and preferences in an easily managed database for planners. (www.starcite.com)