Renewed Sheraton Boston To Boost Conventions Biz
<B> Renewed Sheraton Boston To Boost Conventions Biz</B>
By Bob Curley
When Major League Baseball decided to bring together the century's greatest ballplayers as part of the 1999 All-Star Game celebration in Boston, nobody in the city was surprised by the location they picked for the meeting: the Sheraton Boston. Long recognized as a market leader, and the biggest hotel in New England, the 1,181-room Sheraton Boston reopened July 1 after completing a massive two-year, $73 million renovation. Curiously, none of that money went into expansion, despite the fact that Boston has a severe hotel-room shortage and stratospheric occupancy rates. Rather, said hotel manager Larry Trainor, the focus of the renovations was to improve the Sheraton's already substantial convention and meeting capacity, and to smooth guest arrivals and departures. "One day, when transient business travel begins to atrophy, we'll be well-positioned to maintain our meeting and convention business," he noted.
The Back Bay hotel added a new 6,608-sq.-ft. ballroom with an outdoor covered terrace, a new banquet kitchen, and a new restaurant and lobby lounge, as well as expanding the front desk to 17 checkin stations. Faster checkin is one way the Sheraton is hoping to improve guests' sense of arrival at the hotel. "Checkin can become a customer inhibitor, but if you can improve those first few minutes, you end up with less problems," said Trainor.
Another way the Sheraton Boston is hoping to impress new arrivals is the hotel's new lobby, which was expanded threefold and is home to the new Turning Point lounge and the Apropos restaurant. The lounge serves both food and drinks, while the Apropos features traditional New England cuisine and caters primarily to meetings.
Business travelers and meeting planners tired of generic meals during conventions should be pleased by the Sheraton Boston's improved banquet facilities as well. Under the chain's Sheraton Select program, the hotel's kitchens now offer a selection of á lá carte entrées, regardless of the group's size.
Trainor said the added ballroom gives the hotel the flexibility to book events like weddings concurrent with meetings, and to play host to larger conventions. Prior to the renovation, the hotel only had enough space for meetings of up to 600 attendees. The added ballroom doubles that capacity, and hopefully will lure back meetings and conventions that went to other cities during the renovations, said Trainor. "This gives the city a better opportunity to book larger, citywide business conventions," he added.
Larry Meehan, director of public relations and tourism for the Greater Boston Convention and Visitor's Bureau, ranks the Sheraton Boston's renovation with the imminent arrival of high-speed rail service from New York and Washington (<I>BTN,</I> June 7) in terms of importance to the city's business climate. Not only will the improvements at the Sheraton bring more conventions to the city, they will push others to keep pace. "This sets the bar for the other hotels in the city," Meehan said. In fact, a number of other Boston hotels recently have undergone substantial renovations, including the Boston Park Plaza, the Westin Copley Place, the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge and the venerable Omni Parker House.
Meehan gives the Sheraton credit for hewing to the Boston ethos of "restoration and renewal, rather than getting bigger and bigger." For example, the hotel's indoor pool, the region's largest, received a facelift, including a replacement for its retractable ceiling dome, and the award-winning cigar lounge The Punch Bar retained its classic look through the renovation.
Located adjacent to the Prudential Tower and the busy Hynes Convention Center, the Sheraton Boston is owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide.