With meetings demand on the rise, so too is the number of convention center hotels being built in the United States, according to real estate investment firm Jones Lang LaSalle. The firm counts five new convention center hotels scheduled to open by 2016, including the Spokane Convention Center Hotel in Washington state, the Marriott Marquis Chicago, the Cleveland Convention Hotel Hilton and two Marriott International properties in Texas: the 1,012-room JW Marriott Austin and the 1,000-room Marriott Marquis Houston Downtown.
"They want to be open for the Super Bowl in 2017, which will be in Houston," said Marriott International vice president of sales for the Americas Dave Nostrand. "To build these hotels, we need the tax subsidies and support of the city, and the city wants these hotels because they're going to drive revenue," he said of Marriott's expanding convention portfolio.
The hotel company most recently opened the $520 million, 1,175-room Marriott Marquis in Washington D.C. in May 2014. The property, which is connected to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, has more than 100,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space. Todd Sherstad, director of Marriott's convention and resort network, compared the impact of a convention center hotel on a city to that of a rising tide that "will lift all of the other ships. These hotels will bring in travelers and tourists, not only for local businesses, but for other hotels in the area," he said.
Sherstad explained hotel companies are not frequently building large, full-service properties "totally by themselves," and that most of the Marriott properties being built now are "within a block or two of, or connected to, a convention center."
"Most of the convention hotels are building out a lot of meeting space themselves, so they can support those medium-sized and larger groups, but yet they're still connected to a convention center for the exhibition space and for any citywide meetings," Sherstad said.
Before the Marriott Marquis in downtown D.C. opened, the hotel had pre-booked more than 700,000 group room nights, according to the company.
Each of Marriott's convention center hotels has its own meetings app—called Red Coat Direct at Marriott properties, R.E.N. Meetings Expert at Renaissance properties and JW Event Concierge at JW Marriott properties—that allows planners to communicate directly with hotel staff via mobile devices.
Marriott also is beta-testing a new Pinterest-like meeting-planning tool called Meetings Imagined, a website where meeting planners can find decor or food and beverage ideas.
Marriott's next convention center hotel, the JW Marriott Austin, is slated to open in February 2015.