Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 3, 1995 TAG: 9510030121
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Raleigh Campbell said he was shocked by the price of lunch at a May charity function at the Hotel Roanoke Conference Center. Knowing in advance the bill would be $2,558, he set ticket prices at $14.50 each for the 179-person function.
"They even charged us for the podium and mike," Campbell said. His organization - the Council of Community Services - told the hotel staff it likely could never afford to return for its annual meeting.
Campbell was mistaken about there being a podium usage fee; the conference center says it charges for use of the microphone. But he is not the first to be troubled by the cost of holding an event in the 6-month-old conference center adjoining the remodeled hotel.
In what conference center officials Monday called a sign of accommodation, the center's prices were lowered or modified.
Tax-exempt organizations will get a 25 percent discount on public meeting rooms, and groups of any type numbering more than 250 people will get a volume discount. Also, patrons no longer will be forced to pay a full-day rate if their meetings run for only part of a day.
The Hotel Roanoke Conference Center Commission approved the first major rate adjustment of its kind at a meeting last week. The changes, which do not affect the hotel's guest room prices, took effect Monday. The center is owned by Roanoke, but the city and Virginia Tech share expenses and income. A unit of Virginia Tech is a co-owner of the hotel.
"We are reacting to the needs of the market, and that's what business is all about," said Sheri Decker, director of conference services.
Many tax-exempt groups had asked the hotel to approve such a discount, which is like one offered by the Roanoke Civic Center, according to Brian Wishneff, executive director of the Conference Center Commission.
"It's just a recognition that so many of these groups, when they have fund-raisers and things like that, they're trying to keep their price as low as possible," Wishneff said. "This is an attempt by the conference center to work with them, to keep the prices as low as possible ... and allow them to make as much money as they can."
Bob Kulinski, president of United Way of the Roanoke Valley, said the announcement was "terrific news." Campbell of the Council of Community Services, a human services planning agency, also applauded the decision.
"It's a good marketing technique," Campbell said, because the volunteer ranks of charities are populated by the business leaders whom the conference center considers potential customers.
The charitable-organization discount, for example, would knock $62.50 off the $250 rental fee for all-day usage of the Mill Mountain Room and $900 off the $3,600 rate for the center's largest room, the 1,400-seat Roanoke Ballroom.
Wishneff said the lack of a half-day meeting fee and large-group discounts have cost the center business. "It's something they got a lot of calls about," he said. With the new rate structure, "they feel they will gain a lot of business that they didn't have otherwise."
NEW RATES
The cost of meeting at the Hotel Roanoke Conference Center has gone down. New discounts include:
25 percent for public meeting rooms when used by tax-exempt organi- zations. The regular cost for an event lasting more than eight hours ranges from $150 for the smallest rooms, which seat 12 to 31, to $3,600 for the Roanoke Ballroom, which seats 1,400. Rates are less for shorter meetings.
A half-day ``meeting package'' fee of $35 per person for events of one to four hours. Previously, only a full-day rate of $44 was available, regardless of the length of the meeting. The fee covers room rental, lunch, beverages and snacks during breaks. The half-day rate is $25 without lunch.
Volume discounts that cut the meeting-
package rate to $39 per person for 250 to 600 people for a single day. For more than 600 people, the rate is $35. Previously, discounts applied only to events of at least 2,000 people.
- Source: Hotel Roanoke Conference Center
by CNB