2,000th Marriott Anchors Tampa

<B>2,000th Marriott Anchors Tampa</B>

By Bob Curley

For Marriott International, the official launch of the Tampa Marriott Waterside in April was a milestone--the 2,000th Marriott opened worldwide. But Tampa officials are hoping the grand opening also signals a turning point for the city's meeting and convention business.

Located just a few steps from the Tampa Convention Center, the 717-room Marriott Waterside provides a much-needed boost to the city's capacity to bring in the kind of meeting business the 600,000-sq.-ft. convention center was designed for, according to Vicki Isley, vice president of marketing for the Tampa/Hillsborough Convention and Visitors Association. "We haven't been able to maximize our use of the convention center until we had these additional adjacent rooms," she said. "We've had quite a few meeting planners interested, but we haven't been able to get the number of rooms in the area that they were looking for."

With the addition of the new Marriott's rooms to the existing inventory provided by the city's recently renovated Hyatt Regency Tampa, the Wyndham Harbor Island and the Radisson Riverwalk properties, the city can go beyond marketing to regional associations and corporations, agreed Gary Hughes, director of marketing for the Marriott Waterside. Isley added that Tampa has experienced a 41 percent increase in future convention bookings since it began including the Marriott in its pitches to meeting planners.

Not only does the Marriott provide a convenient host hotel for the convention center, it is a potent magnet itself for bringing business travelers into Tampa's developing waterfront Channel District. The $105 million property includes 50,000 square feet of meeting space, and every room in the hotel features T-1 ethernet access to the Internet, dual phone lines and executive-friendly work desks; printers in the business center also can be accessed directly from guest rooms.

Tampa officials chipped in public money to ensure that the Marriott Waterside was a flagship property for the city and the Channel District.

"We wanted the look of a Ritz-Carlton, but with the warmth of your living room," said Hughes. The Marriott Waterside's extensive spa facilities and upscale Italian restaurant, Il Terrazzo--a new dining concept being tested here by the hotel chain--are expected to appeal to both business travelers and local residents alike. And while still very much a work in progress, Tampa's Channel District already has a fair number of attractions to offer visitors, most within easy walking distance of the Marriott and the convention center. The Florida Aquarium, for example, and the Ice Palace, a regional concert and event venue and home of the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning.

For the time being, however, the Channel District remains relatively bereft of nightlife, with the best restaurants and nightclubs a 10- to 15-minute cab ride away in Ybor City, Tampa's historic cigar-making center.

But city officials said all that will change when Channelside, the district's new entertainment complex, opens this fall. Currently under construction on the waterfront between the Marriott and the cruise terminal, Channelside is slated to include a 15-screen cinema, an IMAX theater, restaurants and shopping.

Even more ambitious is the plan to construct an electric trolley line connecting the Channel District with Ybor City, home of Florida's oldest eatery, the Columbia Restaurant, the Gonzalez y Martinez Cigar Factory and the new Centro Ybor. The latter is another large-scale entertainment complex that will incorporate the historic Centro Espanol club with a variety of dining options and a high-tech video entertainment center.

Add the Channel District's urban, upscale waterfront environment to the attractions that the Tampa area already is famous for--including the Busch Gardens amusement park, the beaches of Clearwater and the region's wealth of outdoor activities--and city boosters said they have a package that puts them in a position to compete with other warm-weather business and convention destinations, such as San Antonio, Texas, and Charlotte, N.C.

Said the Marriott's Hughes, "We don't have to hold out our hat to anyone.