John-

A hotel normally allocates showroom space based on the amount of money the group is going to spend with the hotel. This money is in the form of room revenue and food and beverage. We use 25,000+ square feet of exhibit and meeting space which is huge for a group that only books 250-275 rooms on a peak night. We spend $10,000 - $15,000 on catering which is nominal again for the amount of space we use. If the hotel is not making the money on other souces (rooms and F&B) then they will charge for meeting rooms and exhibit space.

When I have talked with other hotels they have literally said "you want how much space and you are only going to spend $10,000 on catering and book less than 1000 room nights". The revenue we generate does not offset the space we use. In other words we are not an attractive group to most hotels.

The other issue is our group doesn't gamble much so they can't make up the revenue on the drop. The Orleans said the drop actually went down the last time we had our Convention there.

So the easiest way to generate more revenue to the hotel is to get our members to stay there. If not we are going to find ourselves unwelcome at most properties.

Hope this makes sense.

Wayne