Meeting News - September 8, 2008 - (Page 46)

Destination Insider: Cincinnati Edited by Terri Hardin terri.hardin@nielsen.com Riding On Convention Biz, Cincinnati Shrugs Off Airlift Cuts Cincinnati, Delta Air Lines’ second-largest hub, received some unwelcome news from the airline last month: Come September, it will trim nearly 100 flights a day from its schedule at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), a 23-percent reduction versus September 2007 levels. Rather than the 112 cities it served directly through CVG, Delta will serve 99. The changes come amid Delta’s merger with Northwest Airlines, which is expected to be complete by year end and is suppose to enhance air service in Cincinnati and give the airline some breathing room. Convenience and direct service have traditionally been the airport’s trade-off for having the country’s highest average fares. And yet, so far, the city seems mostly immune to fallout from the service cuts. Cincinnati USA, the umbrella tourism agency representing the city and northern Kentucky, has been booking at a record pace. In two weeks, Cincinnati will host the National Baptist Convention’s annual session and its 25,000 attendees—the largest convention in city history, beating out the NAACP’s annual meeting, which had just come in July. “We haven’t seen any problems yet,” Duke Energy Center spokesperson Dan Phenicie said. “Our total convention package is solid enough— a brand-new convention center, hotels within easy walking distance—to where [service cuts are] not affecting business at all.” The number who will attend the National Baptist Convention’s Cincinnati session is lower than the group’s average of 30,000 for such a meeting, said conference management consultant Yvonne Drayton, but it’s difficult to say whether that’s a product of gas prices, airline ticket prices, flight availability, or something else. Drayton estimated that 60 percent of attendees will drive to the convention. “At the time Cincinnati was chosen, fares weren’t a consideration,” Drayton said, though she has noticed them more since. Instead, the group looked at the city’s central location, walking distances between hotels and convention center, and restaurants and amenities downtown. Cincinnati is also notably more affordable than the larger cities that the National Baptist Convention has booked in the past. This year, faced with a smaller than usual convention space, planners are using US Bank Arena downtown for some events. Julie Calvert, Cincinnati USA’s vice president of marketing and regional development, credited Delta for working with civic leaders to mitigate the airline industry’s impact on conventions. “We’ve had a lot of open and ongoing discussions since [Delta and Northwest] announced their merger, including one-on-one meetings with [Delta president and CFO] Ed Bastion. . . . Even with cuts that may occur, we still will have more daily flights than any other city in our competing market (Indianapolis, Columbus, Louisville, and Lexington). Developers and hoteliers must share that optimistic outlook for the long term. Owners of a Fourth Street high-rise appear to have designs on converting the building into a Marriott Renaissance hotel, though Marriott International has not confirmed that. And, the new Banks residential/retail/entertainment district is still in its early construction phase on the city’s riverfront, but should include at least one boutique hotel in operation by 2010 across the street from Great American Ball Park, home of baseball’s Reds. That hotel would join 80,000 sf of retail, 300 apartments, and 300,000 sf of office space in the first phase of development. More speculative is another possible boutique hotel on the western side of the development, near Paul Brown Stadium, home of the NFL’s Bengals.“That one’s definitely subject to how the market goes and how the development itself fares,” said Eric Stuckey, Hamilton County’s assistant administrator for administrative services. For now, project managers are busy shoring up the foundations of the enterprise. Bids went out in mid-August for pilings for the parking garage that will support the above-ground structures and keep the district out of the Ohio River flood —Brad Crawford zone. r www.meetingnews.com Newport Ducks Arrive to Quack Up the Riverfront n July, the Kentucky side of the Ohio River received a new attraction: Ride the Ducks Newport, a 60-minute sightseeing tour by amphibious vehicle. The tour follows a five-mile route that wends in and out of the river past Cincinnati’s stadiums, the Newport Aquarium, the World Peace Bell, and other sites—departing from and returning to Newport on the Levee, Northern Kentucky’s entertainment district. Newport is the fifth city in which Branson, MO-based Herschend Family Entertainment has Ducks operations; the other four are Philadelphia, Baltimore, Branson, and San Francisco. According to Linda Antus, president and CEO of Cincinnati USA, the tourism agency representing the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky region, the Ducks (which are available for group rental) provide “that appeal of a land/water experience that showcases the natural beauty of our river region; it [also] showcases nearby attractions we are famous for.” I 46 MeetingNews September 8, 2008 Photo: Aaron Davidson http://www.meetingnews.com

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Meeting News - September 8, 2008

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