Meet Minneapolis, Convention and Visitors Association, is celebrating 2014 as the most successful year in hospitality the city has seen. Record highs in hosted events, hotel occupancy, average daily hotel rate, revenue per available room, leisure and hospitality jobs along with the organization achieving all its key performance indicators, securing the 2018 National Football League (NFL) Super Bowl and 2019 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)® Men’s Final Four® and hosting a successful series of conventions and events that included the 2014 Major League Baseball All-Star Game and Meeting Professionals International World Education Congress add up to what President and CEO Melvin Tennant calls the “Best. Year. Ever.”
Meet Minneapolis is responsible for achieving annual goals on its contract with the City of Minneapolis including four key performance indicators (KPIs), and all were met with success in 2014: nearly 504,000 future hotel room nights booked for meetings and conventions, nearly 71,000 leisure room nights booked, over $1.5 million in sponsorship revenue earned and $16.6 million in revenue earned at the Minneapolis Convention Center, which is the highest revenue recorded for the facility in its history. The future hotel room night bookings include the more than 71,000 total room nights for Super Bowl LII and more than 52,000 total room nights for the 2019 Final Four, along with numerous other conventions and events that will occupy the city’s hotel rooms in future years.
Hosting a record 534 meetings and conventions in the year of 2014, Minneapolis’ annual hotel occupancy was 72 percent with a record high $148 annual average daily rate (ADR) and another record high $107 revenue per available room (RevPAR). In spite of winter, traditionally a slower season for Minneapolis hotels, the sustained performance at 72 percent annual occupancy speaks volumes for the health of the industry here. Tennant points out that the hotel occupancy sustaining over 70 percent is considered nationally enviable, and is a level at which hotel developers will look closely at a city for adding hotel rooms. This, too, is already underway with a number of planned developments.
All of the results achieved in 2014 ultimately add up to a busy hospitality industry that employs members of the community. The City of Minneapolis now boasts more than 31,000 leisure and hospitality industry jobs.
“Collectively, these results are the envy of other cities,” said Tennant. “It’s also important to note that the ground work for all of this was laid years ago.” Not only has the addition of the New Minnesota Stadium, under construction and set to open in 2016, helped to attract business to the area, but also the continued infrastructure improvements like the METRO Green Line, which began light rail service between downtown Minneapolis and Saint Paul in June 2014, and the many millions of dollars in hotel renovations. Additionally, planned renovations of Nicollet Mall and Target Center attract favor from groups booking future meetings and conventions in the city.
Another 2014 success story, AEG Facilities-managed Target Center, recently released that the arena ranks as the #1 arena in the Twin Cities, #6 in the United States and #17 worldwide based on the number of event tickets sold in 2014, according to Pollstar, the leading concert trade publication. Owned by the City of Minneapolis, the arena closed out 2014 with its highest ranking ever on the Pollstar year-end charts, attracting thousands of visitors to downtown Minneapolis throughout the year.
Meet Minneapolis expects a busy convention season in 2015, led by the 35,000 estimated attendees expected to participate and watch the action at the National Senior Games in July, which will be hosted in conjunction with Saint Paul and Bloomington. Other significant meetings and conventions in Minneapolis include: the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (March), the Society of Government Meeting Professionals (April), Sister Cities International (July), National Association of Black Journalists (July-August), Railway Interchange (October) and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of English and Irish Dance Teachers Association of North America (November).
“We certainly hope to replicate the past year’s success in the future,” said Tennant. “Of course, not every year will provide the same set of opportunities, but we at Meet Minneapolis see nothing but a bright future for our city and our quest to become the destination of choice.”
About Meet Minneapolis: Meet Minneapolis is a private, not-for-profit, member-based association. It actively promotes and sells the Minneapolis area as a destination for conventions and meetings, works to maximize the visitor experience and markets the city as a desirable tourist destination to maximize the economic benefit of the greater Minneapolis area.
Meet Minneapolis is accredited by the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program (DMAP) of the Destination Marketing Association International.
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