Meeting News - August 10, 2009 - (Page 18)

West Regional By Frank Rosci A u g u s t 1 0 , 2 0 0 9 Vo l u m e 3 3 , N u m b e r 1 1 Corporate/Sales Nella Veldran, Vice President, Travel Group Phone: (646) 654-7325 Southeast/Mid-Atlantic/Ohio Larry Mischik, Ad Director/Account Manager 3054 Four Oaks Drive, Atlanta, GA 30360 Phone: (770) 604-9641 San Francisco Pins Future Growth On Moscone Expansion With a proposed expansion to its convention center that could help the city better compete for citywide events still years away, San Francisco is cutting deals to bring short-term meetings into the city and eyeing a rebound. Despite the so-called Great Recession, San Francisco’s meetings industry remains active “San Francisco is somewhat more resilient than other places because of the popularity of the destination. It’s a premium product with a relatively low number of hotel rooms—33,000 in the city itself—so occupancies have remained rather high, at 78 percent in 2007 and 2008, but room nights are down since fewer attendees are coming to town, including corporate clients,” Hoops said. Occupancies at the Moscone Center, San Francisco’s largest convention venue, were at 74 percent to 78 percent for the last two years, Hoops said. A proposed expansion of the center, N.Y./N.J./New England/Bermuda/Caribbean Diane DiMaggio, International Advertising Director 770 Broadway, NY, NY 10003; Phone: (646) 654-7332 Florida/Cruise Arthur Hyman, Associate Publisher/Account Manager 1267 Via Fiume, Boynton Beach, FL 33436 Phone: (561) 736-5374 CA/HI/Colorado/Arizona/Nevada/N.M. Sharon Freeark, Account Manager 2950 31st St., Ste. 100, Santa Monica, CA 90405-3037 Phone: (626) 578-0700; Fax: (626) 578-0720 Digital Sales Jared Smith, National Account Manager 770 Broadway, NY, NY 10003; Phone: (646) 654-5520 International Diane DiMaggio, International Advertising Director 770 Broadway, NY, NY 10003; Phone: (646) 654-7332 Diane.Dimaggio@nielsen.com Canada Cyndy Fleming,Publicitas APR 468 Queen St. E, Toronto, ON M5A 1T7 Phone: (416) 363-1388 Cyndy.Fleming@Publicitas.com Western office: Rosalind Genge, Publicitas APR 1281 W. Georgia St., 502, Vancouver, BC V6E 3J7 Phone: (604) 688-5914; Fax: (604) 689-0703 Rosalind.Genge@Publicitas.com Mexico & Latin America Veronica Castro, CASS Media Corina No 31-B; Col. Del Carmen Coyoacan, Mexico, DF 04100 Phone: 52-55/5605-1757 veronicacastro@cassmedia.com Singapore Lavender Tan, Al Media 733 Bukit timah Road #03-05, Singapore 269748 Phone: (65) 6469-9321; Fax: (65)6469-8028 lavtan@signet.com.sg Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines Annie Blanchard & Assoc Unit 9A #8 Wack Wack Rd. Condo-minium, Wack Wack Rd., Greenhills E, Mandaluyong City 1550, Metro Manila, Philippines Phone: (632) 646-2497; Fax: (632) 647-1853 abaltd@skyinet.net Korea Jung-Won Suh, Sinsegi Media Inc. 4-13, Yoick-dong, Kandungpo-gu, Seoul, Korea 150-890 Phone: +82 2 3275 5969; Fax: +82 2 785 8225 sinsegi-2@sinsegimemdia.info Japan Moscone East vision could materialize in the next decade. and fairly well-supported. Officials at the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau are hopeful that after 2010— which looks soft, said executive vice president and chief customer officer Leonard Hoops— conditions in the city’s meetings’ marketplace will improve dramatically. “We know this will not be fixed in just one year, but we’re seeing signs that the situation will begin to turn around in 2011,” Hoops said, adding that the bureau books groups up to 15 years out, so long-term the demand is there, even in the current downturn. 18 MeetingNews August 10, 2009 Hiroko Kujime, Pacific Business, Inc. Matsuda Building, 2-4-6 Nihonbashi Kayabacho Chuo-ku, Tokyo 103-0025; Phone 81-3-3661-6138 Fax: 81-3-3661-6139; Kujime-pbi@gol.com “Moscone East,” would increase contiguous space from 260,000 to 361,000 square feet and boost overall space to 540,000 square feet. Hoops said a task force formed 18 months ago was scheduled to meet on July 31, after press time, to discuss Moscone East and two other expansion scenarios. The SFCVB board was scheduled to meet Aug. 5 to examine the task force’s recommendation. “If both agree, we can then go to city hall for approval,” he said. If project financing can be secured, ground could be broken around the mid-2010s, he said. continued on page 20 Taiwan Ye Chang & Paula Liu, Epoch Ltd 3F-4, 189 eelung Road, Section 2, Taipei 11054, Taiwan Phone: +886-223-779108 epoch.paula@msa.hinet.net, epoch.ye@msa.hinet.net Spain Luis Andrade, Luis Andrade Publicidad Internacional Plaza Descubridor Diego de Ordas 1, Madrid, 28003, Spain Phone: +34-91-441-6266, Fax: +34-91-441-6549 LAndrade@luisandrade.com Portugal Paulo Andrade, Ilimitada Media International Av. Eng. Duarte Pacheco; Amoreiras Torre 2, Piso 5 Sala 1, Lisbon, 1070102, Portugal Phone: 351-21-385-3598/45; Fax: 351-21-388-3283, PAndrade@ilimitadapub.com www.meetingnews.com http://www.meetingnews.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meeting News - August 10, 2009

Meeting News - August 10, 2009
Contents
Meetings Spotlight
MeetingNews Research
Meeting People
Construction Cites
Travel Dashboard
West Regional

Meeting News - August 10, 2009