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Dallas-Area Visitors Bureaus Create 
Joint Tourism Effort
By Sean Wood, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News 

Oct. 16--Local convention and visitors bureaus have teamed up on a new campaign to fill empty Metroplex hotel rooms and get people shopping as the year winds down. 

The bureaus in Arlington, Irving, Dallas, Addison and Plano have teamed up for the Dallas Metroplex On Sale Campaign. In addition, at least 100 area hotels are offering discounted rooms and retailers and attractions are offering discounts to guests. 

"The No. 1 activity of visitors to the area is shopping," said Scott Dally, of Dally Inc. Dally helped put together the campaign and line up the participants. "This program is intended to make coming to the Dallas Metroplex even more desirable. Going into the fourth quarter, everyone is going to be shopping." 

Shopping has long been the top activity for tourists, outpacing theme parks and sightseeing. Visitors to Texas spent $5.7 billion shopping in 1999, the most recent figures available, according to Texas Economic Development. 

Dally said retail centers such as Lincoln Square in Arlington, Grapevine Mills, the Galleria in Dallas and the Shops at Willow Bend in Plano are participating, as are high-end hotel properties such as The Mansion on Turtle Creek, the Hyatt Regency Dallas, The Crescent and the Dallas Renaissance. 

Dally said the Mansion, for example, is offering $400 rooms for $195; the Crescent is offering $360 rooms for $155 and the Hyatt Regency is offering $245 rooms for $79. 

"We want to support the city and this opens the door to a whole new market," said Priscilla Hagstrom, a spokeswoman for the Hyatt Regency. 

"The events of Sept. 11 created a lot of empty rooms," Dally said. "Rather than not book them at all, we create an opportunity for buyers to get rooms at rates that have never existed before and will never exist again." 

"Even though things are getting back to some sense of normal, the hotel industry and retail industry that rely on tourists still have a way to go to get back to normal," said Jim Clark, president and chief executive of the Irving Convention and Visitors Bureau. "The whole mission is to try to generate fourth-quarter business in a sagging time for tourism." 

The campaign, set to start this weekend, will use print, broadcast and Internet advertising to target travelers in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and other parts of Texas. Local tourism agencies and businesses are contributing almost $1 million worth of support for the campaign. 

"The fact is we have the platform to launch this campaign tomorrow," said Linda DiMario, president and chief executive of the Arlington Convention & Visitors Bureau. "There are regions across this country that were very hard hit and they're struggling to put these programs on now. Los Angeles and cities in Southern California are struggling to form some kind of coalition." 

Retail destinations are also jumping into the fray, offering discounts averaging 20 percent to guests who book at hotels in the program. 

"The Mills Corp. values very highly the tourism industry," said Grapevine Mills General Manager Dennis McGovern. "They are a very integral part of our business. The hospitality industry has been hit very hard as a result of the Sept. 11 incidents. What we provide to the hotels is just another reason to come to the Metroplex." 

The Mills is offering a VIP redemption card that allows shoppers to pick up a coupon book that they can use with retailers in the mall. Grapevine Mills is also asking its retailers to offer discounts beyond those in the coupon book. 

Lincoln Square, which is in Arlington's entertainment district, is trying to line up some of its tenants as well, said Property Manager Pam Dawson. 

"We are wanting to do everything we can to help the residents in the outlying areas to come into the city and entertain themselves and shop," Dawson said. "I'm hoping to get a good response from our tenants. Dunhill Partners has told all of its shopping centers to get out there and encourage business," she said of the property owner. 

-----To see more of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.startext.com 

(c) 2001, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. MLS, 


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