Focus on: Austin
In Austin, also known at times as "music city," a hot draw for convention-goers is the entertainment. There are 200 live music venues in multiple entertainment venues.
"As the live music capital of the world, Austin offers the amenities groups need for work and play," said Steve Genovesi, sales, CVB Austin.
The news is that Hyatt Place Downtown recently broke ground on a 296-room hotel to open in 2013. Meanwhile, JW Marriott Austin plans a downtown convention-style hotel to open in 2015. They will be joining the area’s 30,000 guest rooms in the city with 6,000 of them in downtown.
"Many of our rooms are within walking distance of the state-of-the-art convention center," said Genovesi.
Austin offers 881,400 square feet of space at the Austin Convention Center.
The convention center features free Wi-Fi throughout the facility’ an one-site technical staff, and it’s said to be the only convention center in Texas to achieve LEED Gold certification, according to CVB officials.
Major attractions in the area include the Lady Bird Lake downtown 10.3 mile hike-and-bike trail along with lake activities such as kayaking, canoeing, and stand-up paddle boarding.
Local-dining is available at the city’s 2000 mobile food vendors.
There’s also what the CVB calls "world-class golf and spas" within 30 minutes of downtown.
The shoulder season here is June, July and August.
The new [Marriott] is going to be a tremendous opportunity to provide convention planners a new destination. Austin is a vibrant, cool, hip, livable city. There’s curiosity about the town and that’s something to draw meeting planners here," Genovesi said.
By David Wilkening
David
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