Meeting News - February 16, 2009 - (Page 17)

By William Ng william.ng@nielsen.com Technology pages created for group room bookings, for example. The domain names given by the tool, at www.link2brand.com, are: G hotelgrouprooms.com G hotelassociationrooms.com G myhotelpromotions.com G preferredhotelrate.com A meeting planner or a hotel salesperson can customize the rest of the URL that follows the domain name, such as www.hotelassociationrooms.com/ASBE2009Annual Meeting. In the tool, users create their link, enter the actual hotel landing URL, and, optionally, set a meeting description and an expiration date for the link. For example, those who click on www.hotelassociationrooms.com/ ASBE2009AnnualMeeting are taken back to the original site with the unsightly URL www.hilton. com/com/en/hi/groups/personalized/ORDILHF-CAW-20090520/ index.jhtml. While attendees often can easily copy and paste such alphabet-soup URLs from electronic marketing messages into their web browsers, it is cumbersome to manually lift the link from a printed page, such as from a direct-mail brochure. The shorter links are easier for delegates to remember, as well. Although in-house IT teams at hotels can create custom URLs for groups, this is a simplified and supposedly less expensive method. According to DJ Vallauri, founder and president of Lodging Interactive, over 100 properties are using the converter, including those from Hilton Hotels & Resorts and Marriott International. Vallauri expects more domain names will be added to the tool, though he told MeetingNews they can’t be as specific as to include individual hotel names. Lodging Interactive is offering the tool on a free tryout basis until June 30. Afterward, an annual account is $700 per organization. H Web-Based Tool Generates User-Friendy, Redirecting URLs A web-based tool rolled out by Parsippany, NJ-based Lodging Interactive allows lodging suppliers and meeting planners to convert long, unruly URLs of groupspecific hotel web pages into shorter ones for publication in meetings marketing materials. These simplified URLs redirect viewers to the actual hotel landing Jacksonville Website Wins HSMAI Award Visit Jacksonville and its website designer, simpleview, picked up Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International’s Silver Adrian Award. The website, www. visitjacksonville.com, was described as visually striking and lauded for its Web 2.0 elements for visitors and meeting planners. “The HSMAI Adrian Award is a great honor,” said John Reyes, Visit Jacksonville’s president and CEO. “Our team has worked this past year to create initiatives and overhaul our website to increase awareness and visitor demand.” Convention centers cont. from p. 12 talize areas around them, create jobs and businesses, and draw private development and visitor spending, leading to tax revenues. Also, they argue that these economic engines must be replenished or enlarged to attract or retain bigger or growing groups. Those points were made in a late-January letter to Albany’s Times Union paper by Michele Vennard, president and CEO of the Albany County Convention & Visitors Bureau, in response to critics of the proposed Albany Convention Center. She contended the convention and hotel complex will win new business that the present Empire State Plaza Convention Center couldn’t land. www.meetingnews.com But the city’s convention center authority has had to slash the project’s tab to around $250 million and shift hotel and garage development into private-sector hands. And, at press time, it was waiting on a $10 million fund approval from the state while seeking federal stimulus aid for the project. In Nashville, both CVB president Butch Spyridon and mayor Karl Dean applauded the respective 2013 and 2014 bookings by the Academy of General Dentistry and Association of School Administrators contingent on the proposed $595 million Music City Center. But money for the building’s construction has yet to be sourced, and Dean is reportedly looking at tourism taxes. The city council must give approval, though it has green-lighted a taxable 1,800-acre downtown tourism zone. In the west, San Diego is mulling a $1 billion plan to double the size of its convention center to 1 million sf and build a bayfront hotel, but mayor Jerry Sanders said no money from the city’s general fund can go toward their development. Sanders has created a 17-member task force to determine whether there is demand for a bigger facility as well as financing options. The current center is said to be operating at capacity. Back east, a 3-percent hotel tax is funding Wilmington’s $60 million convention center, and a 157-room hotel is being privately developed. Construction began over a year ago, and while money already has been earmarked, there remains pressure to steer the funds elsewhere to aid the city’s economy. Development of a convention hotel for the Palm Beach County Convention Center has encountered setbacks. The credit freeze forced the project’s developer to seek an additional $10 million subsidy from the county that was refused. Meanwhile, an FBI investigation revealed that county commissioners took bribes from the developer, which has led to one resignation and nixed for good a development deal struck in 2004. The project is likely on hold until the dismal economic conditions improve, so a hotel now remains years away. H MeetingNews 17 February 16, 2009 http://www.hotelassociationrooms.com/ASBE2009Annual http://www.hotelassociationrooms.com/ASBE2009Annual http://www.link2brand.com http://www.hotelgrouprooms.com http://www.hotelassociationrooms.com http://www.myhotelpromotions.com http://www.preferredhotelrate.com http://www.hotelassociationrooms.com/ASBE2009AnnualMeeting http://www.hotelassociationrooms.com/ASBE2009AnnualMeeting http://www.hilton.com/com/en/hi/groups/personalized/ORDILHF-CAW-20090520/index.jhtml http://www.hilton.com/com/en/hi/groups/personalized/ORDILHF-CAW-20090520/index.jhtml http://www.hilton.com/com/en/hi/groups/personalized/ORDILHF-CAW-20090520/index.jhtml http://www.hilton.com/com/en/hi/groups/personalized/ORDILHF-CAW-20090520/index.jhtml http://www.visitjacksonville.com http://www.visitjacksonville.com http://www.meetingnews.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meeting News - February 16, 2009

Meeting News - February 16, 2009
Contents
What’s Up @ MeetingNews.com
People Making News
International
Technology
MN Webcast Report
Ad Index
Live from the Forum

Meeting News - February 16, 2009