Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 2, 1995                   TAG: 9504150006
SECTION: HOTEL ROANOKE                    PAGE: 17   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IF THEY WERE NAYSAYERS BEFORE, THEY'RE POSITIVE NOW ON HOTEL PROJECT

The most severe early critic of the project isn't talking at all on the eve of its opening.

T.A. Carter, owner of the Roanoke Airport Marriott and the Blacksburg Marriott, commissioned a study by consultants in 1992. They reported that the Hotel Roanoke project was not economically viable.

Carter, who in the 1970s was a party to a suit that tried to stop development of Valley View Mall, failed to return the newspaper's repeated phone calls to his office over a period of 10 days.

Bill Carder, manager of the Radisson Patrick Henry Hotel, now says that "I think it has to be successful."

Hotel Roanoke and the Radisson are, in fact, engaged in some joint marketing, hoping to lure visitors and conventions to both hotels.

They have published a promotional piece that touts downtown Roanoke as a tourist destination, boasting two historic hotels, 50 restaurants, the City Market and Center in the Square.

Hotel Roanoke alone won't have enough rooms to attract a major conference, Carder said. "With us, they do."

Carder said the Radisson will "work intensely with Hotel Roanoke to bring major conferences downtown." If this happens, he said, it will be a win-win situation for everybody.

He said the valley must work to obtain new meetings, bringing to Roanoke the people who have skipped this area in the past. Otherwise, he pointed out, the success of the two downtown hotels will come at the cost of outlying hotels.

Hotel Roanoke, he said, will "help us and help downtown Roanoke. But we need new business not to take a bite out of the pie."

Gerald Carter, manager of the Holiday Inn Tanglewood, said he never had any concerns about Hotel Roanoke. "The more reasons there are for visitors to come to the valley, he said, "the better off all of us are."

Carter expects some local organizations who have been meeting at the Holiday Inn Tanglewood to give Hotel Roanoke a whirl when it first opens. The same thing happened when the Roanoke Airport Marriott opened, he pointed out, and "everyone survived."

If those groups move permanently, he said, his hotel will try to find others. "I like competition. I meet it head-on," Carter said.

Martha Mackey, director of the Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau, said her concern centers on the number of rooms - 323 compared to the 380 at the old hotel. The positive side of this is that the fewer rooms "are a very nice size, much more accommodating."

Mackey deals in so-called blocks of rooms that can be assigned to a convention because a hotel never blocks off all of its rooms.

Of the 323 rooms, Mackey expects the hotel to assign a block of 250 to 270 to a convention when she had been hoping for a block of 350 rooms.

The Radisson will commit about 100 of its 128 rooms, giving a downtown convention an assignment of 370 rooms.

This is similar to the airport motels. She said the Marriott will block 270 to 280 of its 320 rooms while the Sheraton will designate 120 to 125 of its 148 rooms. So, the airport hotels actually offer 400 rooms, more than the two downtown hotels.

Mackey estimated that only 35 percent to 40 percent of organizations are willing to divide their delegates between even two hotels. That is why she would have preferred one hotel with a single block of 350 rooms for larger conventions.

The bureau has been working toward the goal of bringing new business to the valley so that there are enough conventions to go around.

The bureau sent information about the Roanoke Valley to 3,000 prospects who have never met here. The package contained a mug labeled "The taste of things to come," along with a pound of coffee and a picture of the H&C Coffee sign.

The mailer generated a 12 percent return, Mackey said, and the bureau is following up with those who responded - and those who didn't. She noted it can take years to land a convention because they are planned so far in advance.

In 1992-93, the bureau had 48 leads, 24 bookings, 22,660 conventioneers and 19,270 room nights of business.

The comparable figures for 1993-94 are 120 leads, 42 bookings, 41,757 conventioneers and 32,322 room nights.

Just the money spent for rooms, food and beverages rose from $8.8 million to $25.2 million.