Apr. 25--Orlando's large number of hotels helped boost the city to No. 1 in the number of trade shows and conventions in the United States and Canada, according to a comprehensive industry census. 

"Frankly, that was a surprise, that Orlando came in first," with 625 events, said Douglas Ducate, president and chief executive officer of The Center for Exhibition Industry Research, a nonprofit group in Chicago that commissioned the study. 

Las Vegas had 589, Toronto had 582 and Chicago had 493, during the 12-month study period ended March 31, 2001. 

"The perception has been that Vegas and Chicago vied for the highest number of exhibitions," Ducate said, because their convention centers are larger than Orlando's center, which has 1.1 million square feet of exhibit space. 

Chicago's McCormick Place has 2.16 million square feet and the Las Vegas Convention Center has 1.95 million square feet. 

In total attendance, though, Orlando still trails Las Vegas and several other cities because Orlando conventions are generally smaller. 

Part of the explanation for Orlando's high total number of events, Ducate said, is that hotels host more convention business than many experts had thought, and the CEIR study captured details on those smaller hotel exhibitions. 

Orlando is second only to Las Vegas in numbers of hotels. But in Orlando, the study found, 41 percent of the 625 events were held in hotels. In Las Vegas, 34 percent of its events were held in hotels. 

Although attendance to the events was not broken out by city, unpublished data from the survey show that Las Vegas had twice as many total attendees as Orlando, 2.3 million to 1.14 million, because Las Vegas hosts larger shows. 

In terms of the largest events, 100,000 square feet and above, the study found that Las Vegas topped Orlando, 78 to 55. Chicago was second at 66. 

Those large shows are the ones Orlando will be better able to attract once the current Orange County Convention Center expansion is completed, said Bill Peeper, president of the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau. 

The center, on International Drive, is being expanded to 2 million square feet of exhibition space, in a $740 million project scheduled to be completed by the end of next year. 

Peeper said the area around the convention center needs more new hotels and expansion of some of the existing luxury hotels to help handle larger convention center shows. The recession has slowed private hotel expansion, and Peeper said there likely will be a shortage of hotel rooms for a while after the center is completed. 

"We'll get there; it just takes time," Peeper said. The same imbalance -- a lack of enough nearby hotel rooms -- was seen, Peeper said, when the existing center first opened about 20 years ago. 

Most industry surveys overlook smaller meetings held exclusively at hotels, mainly because it is time-consuming to gather details, Ducate said. But the CEIR survey found that events of less than 50,000 square feet of exhibit space accounted for 79 percent of all the trade shows in the United States and Canada. About 37 percent of all the events were held in hotels, roughly the same as the 38 percent held in convention centers. 

The survey gathered confidential data from companies and show organizers on all but the tiniest gatherings -- those with less than 3,000 square feet of exhibition space and fewer than 10 exhibitors. Conferences without exhibit space also were excluded. 

Although the survey numbers are mainly from 2000, before the slowing economy and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks battered the travel industry, signs point to a recovery in the past two quarters. 

"Meetings are coming back," said Bill Deutsch, general manager of the Orlando office of AVW-Telav Audio Visual Solutions, a Dallas-based company with 26 locations in North America providing video, sound and lighting for conferences and trade shows. 

Although business in general is still down from previous years, Deutsch said, the number of events and attendance for events in Orlando seem to be rebounding. One recent show in Orlando, Deutsch said, generated 30 percent more revenue for AVW than had been expected. 

A random survey taken during the first quarter by CEIR of events in 14 cities, including Orlando, found that 65 percent of events met or exceeded expectations in attendance and other performance indicators. The events also utilized 4.5 percent more space than projected, the survey found. 

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(c) 2002. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.