San Antonio Breaks Ground on Hyatt Headquarters Hotel

Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 6/13/2005

The resignation of San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau Director Melvin Tennant came at an awkward time, just three weeks before the June 10 groundbreaking of the 1,000-room Hyatt convention headquarters hotel. Still, city officials are confident that the project will be a success.

"I don't anticipate seeing any change," said Roland Lozano, assistant to the San Antonio city manager. "We're running and gunning on the project." Former bureau Assistant Director — and now Acting Director — Janis Schmees will "just keep it going," Lozano added. The bureau has "moved carefully forward," Schmees said of the hotel.

Chicago-based HVS Convention, Sports & Entertainment Facilities Consulting in April completed a market study with financial projections supporting the hotel. The HVS report noted that the headquarters hotel will improve San Antonio's ability to capture tradeshow and meetings business. The consultant stated that the city would have captured 28 percent more convention center business if the hotel had existed last year.

The study noted that in 2003, the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center's room-night production declined by nearly 15 percent due in part "to heightened competition from other convention destinations in the nation, such as Chicago, Las Vegas and Orlando." New or expanded convention venues and headquarters hotels that opened recently in Austin and Houston, as well as the new Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, also placed San Antonio at a disadvantage, the study said.

The Gonzalez center, which offers 440,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space, in 2004 hosted one Tradeshow Week 200 show, CAMEX (Campus Market Expo), listed at No. 192. San Antonio is set to host 49 shows this year, according to the 2005 Tradeshow Week Data Book.