Charleston Ranks As South's Top Biz Travel Destination
<B>Charleston Ranks As South's Top Biz Travel Destination</B>
By Frank Rosci
Charleston, S.C., known as "The Holy City" because of its many churches, lies in the state's so-called Lowcountry along the Atlantic coast, and ranks as one of the South's best-known and most active business travel and meeting locales. In recent years, the city has continued to attract thousands of corporate travelers and increase numbers of annual meeting groups.
"Surveys show that up to 10 percent of the 3.7 million visitors the Charleston region hosts annually come primarily for business purposes, and 5 percent to 7 percent say their primary purpose for visiting is to attend a meeting or convention," said Jacki Renegar, director of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce. Of all guests staying overnight in paid accommodations, she continued, up to 25 percent on average are in town on business and up to 12 percent for a meeting or convention. Over the past several years, the Charleston area has hosted an average of 700 to 800 meetings and conventions a year, with approximately 50,000 to 80,000 attendees participating annually, Renegar added.
Charleston's newest hotel is the 167-room Renaissance Charleston Hotel, which opened in the heart of the city's
historic district in January.
In addition to guest rooms equipped with the latest in high-tech features, the hotel offers 2,900 square feet of meeting and banquet space in six rooms, with Internet access in all of the rooms, said Karen Thompson-Creighton, director of sales and marketing. "There also are two lavishly decorated executive boardrooms with permanent board-style seating for 10 people, and a hospitality suite with kitchen and wet bar for small meetings of up to 10," she added. The Renaissance also offers a flexible outdoor reception area for up to 50 attendees.
Hotel developer Hardin Capital LLC also is building a 370-space parking garage across from the hotel.
The new hotel is 12 miles from Charleston International Airport, located in North Charleston, a separate city known as the "Hub of the Lowcountry" and the third largest city in South Carolina. At the airport, Northwest Airlines has added three daily routes aboard a 100-seat DC-9 and 69-seat ARJ-89 aircraft from Detroit to Charleston.
Among Charleston's other newer hotels is the 255 all-suite Embassy Suites Charleston Convention Center, which opened its doors in February 2000. "As the only full-service, all-suite hotel in North Charleston, the hotel has brought the added dimension of greater choice for business travelers, as well as the added benefit of greater convenience for groups who use the convention center," said Dawn Truemper, the hotel's director of sales. Suites in the hotel feature large work desks, direct-dial phones with two lines, high-speed Internet access, Web TV and a speaker phone. The hotel also offers a 1,100-sq.-ft. presidential suite for $400 per night.
The hotel offers 3,000 square feet of meeting space and, with the property connected by a skywalk to the convention center--one of the largest meeting facilities in the state--groups may take full advantage of the center's 135,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space. That space includes a 25,000-sq.-ft. ballroom, divisible into five sections, and 14,000 square feet of meeting space in 20 meeting rooms, ranging in size from 480 to 1,900 square feet. The convention center complex also includes an existing 14,000-seat coliseum and 2,300-seat performing arts center. Comp-
limentary shuttle service is available to and from the airport, located two miles away, and to and from downtown Charleston, eight miles away.
Elsewhere in Charleston, the legendary 214-room, 19-suite Mills House Hotel completed a $2.5 million renovation, which included a complete makeover of the main ballroom. The Market Pavilion Hotel, the city's newest boutique hotel, with meeting and banquet facilities, an executive boardroom and concierge-level guest rooms, is scheduled to open this spring.
Business travelers will find a special deal at the 442-room Charleston Place Hotel. The hotel's business traveler package combines deluxe accommodations, daily breakfast, free local phone calls, complimentary business center services, valet parking, shoeshine and daily newspapers. Recent renovations added high-speed Internet access to all guest and meeting rooms.
Meanwhile, groups will find the South Carolina Aquarium an unusual and pleasant off-site meeting venue with space for 20 to 2,000 attendees. At nearby Kiawah Island, the 150-room Kiawah Island Resort Inn completed a $4 million refurbishment and reconstruction plan, which included all guest rooms. A new 330-room, $100 million hotel with extensive meeting space will open at Kiawah Island Resort in 2002. Kiawah Island Resorts, owners and developers of the Inn and new resort, plan an additional $50 million in improvement projects over the next three years.