Just more than a decade ago, options for conventions and large meetings in the Mankato area were limited to a handful of hotels with meeting centers or the use of facilities available at colleges and a few other facilities.
That began to change in 1995 when Mankato constructed the now-named Alltel Center, which includes a 4,832-seat arena and banquet facilities. Since then, added hotel and meeting rooms, skyways, more parking and a growing downtown entertainment district has thrust Mankato into a competitive position with other regional centers for attracting visitors.
Anna Thill, president of the Convention & Visitors Bureau, and her staff are responsible for attracting people — and their spending power — to the area.
The CVB is funded with a 3 percent local lodging tax.
For those in the business of trying to bring conventions and meetings to town, there can never be too many hotels.
Mankato has 1,160 hotel rooms. A 94-room Courtyard by Marriott is to be built near River Hills Mall, opening in 2010. If it is successful, the developer plans to add an 88-room Townplace Suites hotel.
“As far as the number of rooms we have, we’re doing all right,” Thill said. “What we need is more hotels with large convention facilities, banquet rooms and breakout spaces. The Alltel Center is pretty much booked for the year on weekends.”
Having Minnesota State University men’s hockey games played at the Alltel Center, usually on Fridays and Saturdays, also leaves fewer weekend dates for trade shows and weekend events. They play about 16 home games a year.
She said convention planners like being downtown where visitors are in walking distance of restaurants, bars and shops. But Thill said a good stand-alone hotel with convention facilities anywhere in town can draw conventions.
Still, the downtown remains the epicenter of convention trade.
“Having the Hilton attached to the convention center allows us to do so much more.”
The distance between facilities is important to many who plan events, and for some it can be paramount.
Thill said one thing she wants to do is better track why people choose not to come to Mankato.
“We haven’t been as good as we could on tracking that. I’m guessing a lot of it is that facilities are too small or older facilities. A lot of it is not having enough meeting breakout space, that’s one I’ve heard over and over.”
Still, Thill said the additions to the convention campus, addition of hotel rooms and the expanded hospitality industry downtown has placed Mankato in a much better position to compete with larger cities such as Rochester, St. Cloud and Duluth.
Some of the most lucrative events for a community are sports tournaments. They bring players, many of their family members and fans, often for several days, eating at restaurants and maybe doing some shopping.
“We’d like to grow tournaments considerably, considering how much it brings to our community,” Thill said.
But organizing and providing support during a tournament so it is successful is a big job.
“They’re tricky for us. We help local sports organizations host the tournaments and a lot of them are volunteer parents. It’s asking a lot of them to plan and host a lot of tournaments.
Thill would like to see Mankato form a sports commission to seek out and coordinate tournaments.
“Rochester has a sports commission with five staff members who just do tournaments, and they do gangbusters,” Thill said.
“Mankato is a high enough caliber community that we could do that. So if someone books a tournament, they have the support they need.”
Ed Hruska, executive director of the Rochester Amateur Sports Commission, said the group has brought many new events to that city.
“We have 30 to 40 events each year that we are tied to. We don’t count high school events or any events others are doing.”
It’s relatively easy to count how many people come to Mankato and North Mankato for a convention or business meeting and even to estimate the economic impact of those visits.
Not so with tourism.
“It’s harder to track tourism. People don’t contact us when they’re staying here like they do for a convention. You have to spend a lot of money to get that kind of research done.”
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