Conventions becoming as welcome as bikers in Daytona Beach
Once best known for its blue collar image of affordable hotels where guests could drive next to ocean waves, Daytona Beach is reaching out to the convention market.
The city will be pushing to find conventions of up to 20,000 attendees, according to officials of the Daytona Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The area’s convention center is adding 100,000 square feet of exhibit space and 30,000 square feet of meeting space.
With some new hotels, the city now has 13,000 rooms.
A major advantage for the convention market is the same as the tourist sector: lower priced rooms. Some studies show they are up to 40% less than Orlando, which is within an hour’s drive.
Daytona’s image in the past has also been prompted by its spring break and bike weeks. But planners can easily avoid those times, which have also been deliberately downgraded by tourism officials conscious of the area’s sometime poor image.
Report by David Wilkening
David
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