Melbourne Makes Meetings, Incentives A New Priority
<B>Melbourne Makes Meetings, Incentives A New Priority</B>
By Judy Jacobs
While too often standing in the shadow of Sydney, Australia's other major urban enclave, Melbourne, is strengthening its infrastructure to better position itself as a destination for business travel, meetings and incentives. Additional hotels and new and expanded venues should encourage planners to take a second look at this historic city.
"The new infrastructure and the keen desire of the government to see new international companies opening offices or headquarters in Melbourne has assisted in strengthening the city's hotel room demand," said Judith Meadows, spokeswoman for the new Park Hyatt Melbourne, which opened last year.
While airlines are making it more convenient for corporate travelers and convention attendees to get to Melbourne from the United States--with United Airlines and Qantas, for instance, flying nonstop to Melbourne from the West Coast--hotel companies are giving travelers more options of places to stay. The latest of these, the 163-room Westin Melbourne on Regent Place opened this February.
"What sets it apart as a hotel for business travelers is its location in the heart of the central business district, on City Square, which is destined to become one of Melbourne's most prestigious addresses," said Fiona Godfrey, the new hotel's director of sales. The Westin Melbourne offers Westin Guest Office rooms, which combine the efficiency and technology of an office with the "unsurpassed comfort and luxury of a private guest room." Along with the many features of the Westin Guest Office rooms, the hotel also offers some of the largest guest rooms in Melbourne, averaging from 420 to 474 square feet. The hotel includes an Executive Conference Center, which has six meeting rooms ranging in size from 506 to 1,410 square feet.
The historic Plaza Ballroom, located next to the Westin Melbourne in The Regent Theater and one of the city's top venues, accommodates 550 attendees for banquets and 1,200 for receptions. Originally opened in 1929 and recently restored, the Regent Theater was built in Spanish Rococo architectural style and remains a Melbourne landmark.
The 240-room Park Hyatt Melbourne began receiving guests last year. Situated on the edge of the city and surrounded by St. Patrick's Cathedral, Parliament House and Treasury House, the hotel was created with the corporate market in mind. During the early months of operations, that market has made up 60 percent of its guests. The guest rooms all contain four direct dial telephones, dedicated fax/modem lines and interactive infrared keyboards with Internet access via television sets. Meetings and incentives play an important role in the Park Hyatt's market mix.
"Since opening, the hotel has hosted local, national and international events," said Judith Meadows, the hotel's spokeswoman. The trend has been for meetings of two to three days in duration, ranging in size from board meetings for 18 attendees to companies holding regional meetings for 120 guests. "The ideal-size group," she said, "is 100 to 150 rooms complemented by 350 guests in the ballroom." Hotel meeting facilities include a circular ballroom accommodating up to 480 people for banquets and three function rooms, accommodating 12, 20 and 160 attendees, respectively. The hotel also includes a day spa, which has seven treatment rooms and offers facials, massage and hydrotherapy, as well as personal training and nutritional advice.
Meanwhile, another new Melbourne hotel, the Quay West Melbourne, opened last October on the bank of the Yarra River in the city's Southgate district. Each of the 110 one- and two-bedroom suites includes a fully equipped kitchen, washing machine, dryer, iron, spa bath and fax/modem line. The hotel also includes meeting space for groups of up to 110 participants.
Eighteen miles west of Melbourne, the Mansion at Werribee Park is an historic estate that has been converted to a small executive retreat center. Originally completed in 1877 as a country estate, the property was later sold to the Catholic Church, which built the adjoining 200-room St. Joseph's Wing and then sold it to the state of Victoria government.
Melbourne-based The Mansion Group has developed the estate into a 91-room, five-star resort hotel and conference center, which opened earlier this year. The Mansion's facilities include a spa with six treatment rooms, a 20-acre vineyard and a boutique winery with demonstration kitchen. It also will have three boardrooms and four meeting rooms, along with a theater seating up to 160 attendees banquet style and a pavilion seating 140. The resort sits on a site next to an 18-hole golf course next door.
In addition to new hotels, the government and the private sector have begun a series of projects that not only will offer quite a few new venues, but make the city a much more interesting place to meet. Perhaps the most notable of these, the Docklands Project, is a massive 15-year redevelopment scheme that will double the size of Melbourne's Central Business District, and include office space, shops and restaurants, as well as public spaces and attractions.
Paramount's Studio Adventure, a theme park inspired by such movies as Star Trek and Top Gun, is scheduled to be completed in the Docklands in 2001. Also in the new neighborhood, Colonial Stadium, seating 52,000 people, is being built for sporting events, but also will be available for conventions and offsite events. It will have five function rooms, with four accommodating 500 attendees and the fifth, 2,000 people. Live Wire, a planned entertainment section of the stadium, will include bars, cafés and a restaurant, and be available for group parties.
Meanwhile, the Melbourne Aquarium, located on the bank of the Yarra River opposite Crown Casino, opened late last year. The four-story facility, like others of its type, takes people on a conveyor belt through a plastic tube walkway where they are surrounded by sea life. The aquarium concentrates on the southern oceans and includes function space for 1,000 people.
The new Melbourne Museum, scheduled to open this summer on a site next to the historic Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens on the northern edge of Melbourne's central business district, is said to be the largest museum complex in the Southern Hemisphere. It will include four exhibition galleries highlighting cultures and civilizations, science, technology and physiology, as well as a children's museum, an outdoor natural history forest gallery and Bunjilaka Aboriginal Center.
For meetings and presentations, the museum is building a 250-seat theater. Another museum, the National Gallery of Victoria, has been closed down for a two-year renovation project that will increase its size by 25 percent and create a new Museum of Australian Art. The redesigned facility will include two lecture theaters, one seating 100 attendees and the other 315, and both incorporate state-of-the-art audiovisual capabilities.