Bringing the tourists back

Baltimore's tourism industry has taken a hit since the attacks; If we build a convention headquarters hotel and visitors center, will they come?

By Jon Goldstein | SunSpot Staff

October 22, 2001

BACVA's Carroll R. Armstrong announced his resignation today from the organization that he has headed since 1996, effective Feb. 1. Armstrong will become a BACVA consultant. (January 23, 2003)

Tourists and conventioneers pump billions into the state's economy. As president and CEO of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association, Carroll R. Armstrong is working to bring them back to the city in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.

Baltimore has seen five conventions canceled since the attacks with an estimated $23 million in lost revenue. That sounds like a huge hit to the local economy.

You've got to take it in context. We had--from September 11 till the end of the year--25 conventions booked. Out of that 25, we've lost five, which is still a major hit to the economy -- $22.8 million that we won't have. But we still have another $146 million coming in from the 20 that are still on. So, in perspective, I think we got off fairly lightly.

Why was that?

That's a good question. I think one of the reasons is our sales team immediately sprung into action and were communicating with the meeting planners. I sent out personal letters talking about the measures we had taken as a city in safety. And we kind of held their hands and really rode shotgun with the planners to try to keep their confidence up and let them know that Baltimore was still going to be a safe place.

September 11th catapulted our industry into center stage on the national and international radar screen. People from the White House to Hollywood were all talking about the tourism industry and what it meant to the economy.

What does tourism mean to our economy here in Baltimore? I know a lot of the hotels have been forced to cut back their staffs.

They had too, yeah. [But,] most of them have [hired] them back, because October is strong and we are about where we were at this time last year. Some of the outlying hotels were at 20 [percent occupancy rates,] some others were at 40 right after September 11.

But they've bounced back?

Yes, October is very strong and November is looking good as well. And so have the attractions. The tourism industry here in Maryland is $7.8 billion and in Baltimore it's about $3 billion to the economy. And one of the things that we have benefited from as an industry is this recognition that tourism is the third-largest sector behind auto sales and food sales in the country -- $582 billion annually. It's a major contributor to the economy, to the gross national product. It wasn't until September 11th and the weeks following, when everything just stopped, that they realized how important this impact was. We as an industry for many years have been overlooked. They just looked at us as an industry of low wages. This has awakened many powers-that-be to the fact that they have been playing this industry cheap.

How many are employed in the tourism industry locally?

In Maryland, over 100,000 and in Baltimore, last time I looked, about 27,000.

Do we have any idea about how many of these workers may have lost a job or have had their hours cut back since the attacks?

I don't know the exact number. Some hotels did that, some didn't. All the hotels as a result of this have obviously had to look at their management and how to save on things. Some have actually discovered in the process some things that they could be doing to save money that doesn't hurt at all.

Speaking of hotels, the Marriott chain controls about 40 percent of the rooms in Baltimore. Does this make us particularly vulnerable since we are so dependent on one company?

It could have an impact, yes. It's not good to have one company control the majority of your inventory. The ideal is to have a good mix. On the other hand, it's like anything else; there are positives and negatives. The positive side of that is by them controlling so much of the inventory, if we're trying to book a group then they as a team can pull together and provide the number of rooms with the kind of rates they need. If they were independent properties, we would have to be back and forth with each one of them.

What about ways to spur tourism downtown? Washington made the Metro system free last weekend. Does Baltimore have similar plans in the works?

Yes, we are doing a number of things. First of all, we're starting to look at our marketing on a short-term basis. The good news is our location puts us in reach of one-third of the nation's population. Travel is one of the privileges that we have as Americans. But what we're finding is because of the shock and fear that's still underlying, people are not ready to hop on a plane and take long trips. We're thinking that they want to stay closer to home. They want to get away, but they want to know that home is within reach. So we're looking at a radius of a five- to six-hour drive, and we're starting to target that. Our convention sales staff is putting programs and direct mail pieces together to go after more regional meetings as opposed to national meetings. Our leisure programs are still running from New York to Northern Virginia, but we may expand that area a little bit further.

You have been talking about the city's need for a headquarters hotel near the convention center for years. Has there been any movement on this front?

Unfortunately, not enough. That is one of the things that is really holding Baltimore back. When you look at what's happening with Washington D.C., they're building a convention center that's 2 1/2 times the size of ours. Philadelphia, which has a very nice convention center right now, is looking to expand. And they both have headquarters hotels right next to them. Even Pittsburgh is building a new convention center downtown that would be a little larger than ours. All are due to come online before 2005. So without us having the headquarters hotel, that leaves us out of sync. Without the headquarters hotel in close proximity, we find ourselves unable to compete for the quality conventions.