As the summer tourist season begins, the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Conference and Visitors Bureau is encouraging local residents to offer their home turf as the location for their next family reunion, military association meeting or professional conference.
“We know we have many people in the community who are members of larger groups that rotate the location for their conferences,” said Susan Steckman, spokeswoman for the bureau. “We want to let them know that the Conference and Visitors Bureau is here to help people locate events here.”
According to bureau statistics, 99 groups booked events through the Conference and Visitors Bureau in fiscal 2005.
Those events, including conferences, retreats, military and family reunions and sports, pumped about $3.2 million into the local economy.
The economic impact was calculated using a formula that assumed conference participants spend an average of $266 per day.
Steckman said bureau staff tries to help groups schedule events around the group?s calendar, but also suggests alternative dates to assure accommodations.
The economic boom in the northern and western regions of Anne Arundel County, particularly around Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, has also sparked a boom in hotel construction.
Developers say new hotel properties have been designed to fill a need for more, and larger, meeting spaces.
“It?s definitely our feeling that space is available,” Steckman said. “And in many cases, the Conference and Visitors Bureau can help the hotels work around tight schedules.”
