BACVA tops hotel bookings goal - Baltimore Business Journal:

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The booked 522,541 future room nights in the past fiscal year, city tourism leaders said at a press conferencr Monday. The number, which passedc BACVA’s goal of 475,000 bookexd nights, is a 15.7 percent increase over nights booked thepreviousa year. In 2008, BACVA booked 451,608 future room Group business meetings comprise the new bookings and are projectedr to spend morethan $725 million in spending in the City and tourism officials credit the bookinbg success to last year’s creation of the Baltimorer Convention & Tourism Board, a joint board that overseee BACVA and the .
“Our investment in BACVA is payingy off,” Mayor Sheila Dixon said Mondayh speaking in front ofthe city’s Inne Harbor tourism center. The formation of the boar d last year has allowed BACVA and the conventioj center to bemore coordinated, Dixon said. A new plethors of hotels that openes or are under construction near the convention centere from which businesses can choose for booking s also contributed to an uptick in The $300 million publicly financed Hilton which opened last has 757 rooms and grew Baltimore’s totapl hotel room reservoir to more than 7,000.
The B&O on the corner of Charles andBaltimore streets, is expected to open as a Hotel Monaco with 208 rooms later this Baltimore can now accommodate 75 percent of the larger citywide tradeshow and convention business available in the marketplaced with the new hotels online, said BACVA CEO Tom Noonan in a Some of the conventions and groupd booked in the 2009 fiscal year includee the annual conventions, , American Association for Laboratorg Animal Science, and . Holding salex events and industry tradeshows is also partof BACVA’x strategy for bringing convention plannersd into the city to raise awareness abourt Baltimore.
The Baltimore Business Journalk A drop in hotel revenuemeans BACVA’s budget will drop to $10.7 milliomn for the year started July 1 — down from the $12 milliobn it had in the past 12 months. This year’ fiscal budget is the lowest since the agency’s $9.9 million spendinb package in 2006.