<VV> Convention--Hotel

Harry Jensen, CORSA Executive Secretary corsa at corvair.org
Sun Aug 6 10:57:58 EDT 2006


Hello--

Part of the bid process is that CORSA has requirements for the host hotel: 
275 or 300 sleeping rooms, ability to seat 500 at the banquet, a meeting 
room for the vendors, and meeting rooms for all of the various meetings. We 
[CORSA] try to be as flexible as we can as we do not want to eliminate a 
perspective site because of some arbitrary requirement. But if any hotel 
cannot accommodate 500 people for the banquet, we can't use it. We know the 
more restrictive we are about a hotel, the fewer our choices are.

In past conventions, we have used multiple hotels to achieve the 275 rooms 
the convention requires, but this presents its own problems. Hotels usually 
have one or one and half parking spaces per sleeping room, so if we select 
two hotels separated by any distance at all, the property with only 200 
sleeping rooms might have anywhere between 200 and 300 parking spaces, so 
that's not enough parking for local people, the people from adjacent 
hotels, and trailer parking.

Host hotels with convention centers are usually the best for our convention 
because they have parking for their hotel guests and convention attendees 
which might not be the same people for every convention. Downtown or 
congested locations invariably have a premium on parking.

One other thing to keep in mind is that we book hotels two years out and 
our requirements are always changing. Hank, you were involved in the 
Williamsburg convention. I am not sure that the site which worked fine in 
1994 at Williamsburg could be used today. Why? Trailer usage. Everyone who 
trailers uses 4 car parking spaces: two for the trailer, one for the 
Corvair on the trailer, and one for the two vehicle. This year's convention 
chair at the banquet said he counted 76 trailers; those trailers account 
for 304 parking spaces!

One also needs to be aware that a hotel parking lot looks completely 
different when it is at 20% occupancy rather than 90%. I cannot tell you 
how many times I've heard, "the hotel has **plenty** of parking" only to 
arrive and see only 1 parking space per sleeping room which is simply not 
enough!

Parking was an issue in Daytona; we will not use that property again. 
Parking was not a particular issue in Tahoe where we had a relatively large 
parking lot. Parking is always tough; we **never** have enough. In Chicago 
where we had plenty of parking, we thought we could get away with blocking 
off about 400 spaces and reserve those for the concours and autocross. 
Because we reserved those spots (and had over 100 spaces used in the swap 
meet), parking was very tight.

We [CORSA] usually rely on the host chapter to select the hotel based upon 
our requirements and the knowledge we can gain from the hotel sales packet 
and other resources. Neither Convention Coordinator Larry Claypool or I 
visit the site prior to signing the contract, although at times members of 
Larry's Convention Coordinating Committee have.

Before the hotel was selected in Buffalo, there was a lot of e-mail 
discussions of what we [CORSA] wanted in a hotel property. The folks from 
the Four Clubs narrowed the candidates down to two: a Radisson by the 
airport and the Adam's Mark. There were other candidates, but most of the 
discussion within the Four Clubs was about which property to use: the 
airport Radisson or the Adam's Mark. They selected the Adam's Mark which in 
retrospect, was a good choice as the Radisson went out of business shortly 
after we signed the contract with the Adam's Mark and remains closed today. 
When the Adam's Mark was selected, it was our intention to use the public 
television's lot next door for parking.

There are some things that we can find out, no matter how thoroughly we 
evaluate a hotel. I don't think it is possible to check every hotel room to 
see if the A/C works. The A/C worked fine in my room, but I confess I only 
set it at a modest 79 degrees. It is equally difficult to check to see if 
all the elevators work.

I really did like some of the things the Four Clubs did which seem to be 
overshadowed by some of the hotel complaints. I liked seeing all of the 
Corvairs on the one floor of the parking lot. Unlike those who thought the 
Corvairs were hidden there, I think it was wise to limit access to the 
Corvair parking which dictated using the second floor of the ramp. I liked 
having most of the Corvair events at the hotel in one location. 
Registration, hospitality, group meetings, tech sessions, and the vendors 
were all in one area in the hotel. And I  really liked the welcome party on 
the naval ship complete with complimentary wings and pizza.

--H




At 04:20 PM 8/5/2006, henry kaczmarek wrote:
>Now that most of the venting is done, I'd like to say that I'm not fully 
>sure how the host hotel for ANY convention is chosen.
>And for me, how and who would be important before I get even remotely 
>critical.
>
>  I haven't lived in Buffalo but for 1 year of the last 31, but I've been 
> visiting every year at least once, and usually for a week.
>
>Most of the complaints about the host hotel, should it have been chosen, I 
>knew would be targets for complaints for most of the reasons already 
>mentioned long before the issue was settled.
>
>I admit to being blissfully ignorant of how the hotel gets chosen, and 
>since Harry negotiates for the club, perhaps he would enlighten us at his 
>lesiure with what properties were looked at besides Adam's mark, and how 
>the selection process works.
>
>Until then, All I can say is the problems encountered at the Host Hotel 
>were similar to problems I've seen at other conventions.
>Maybe more than usual, but the same problems.
>
>EX: At both Tahoe 99 and Daytona 00, we had a property with a big concrete 
>parking ramp.  Similar issues were seen and stories told after both of 
>those that sound no different to me than what I've heard the last week.
>
>I DID like the mini bars in the Vendor/Hospitality area. Nice touch I 
>hadn't seen before.  Kept me from dragging my cooler around.
>
>Hank
>
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|--------------------------------------------------------------
| Harry Jensen  mailto:corsa at corvair.org
| CORSA Executive Secretary
|
| Corvair Society of America (CORSA)
| P.O. Box 607, Lemont, IL 60439, 630.257.6530  fax 630.257.5540
| http://www.corvair.org
|--------------------------------------------------------------  



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