"This is something we've been talking about for two to three weeks," he tells GlobeSt.com. Moscaritolo met with Steve Crosby, the state's secretary for administration and finance, and Gloria Larson, chairwoman of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, and they decided that the study needed to be done because the convention center's initial feasibility report is more than four years old.
"Things have changed since then," says Moscaritolo. "Hotel development has slowed to a crawl and capital markets have dried up. We need to know how that impacts on a meeting planner's decisions. We need to know if they've readjusted their criteria factors."
As an example of the changes, Moscaritolo points to the recent development of a number of mid-sized hotels in the surrounding Boston area. "We never contemplated this number of midsized hotels," he says. "These rooms that were added to the hotel supply are perfect for the trade show business. We may have overestimated the association business."
Trade show participants tend to stay in less expensive hotels a few miles from the show while association participants usually want the hotels right near the convention center and are willing to pay for that. "Two miles from the convention center there is suddenly a supply of midsized rooms," notes Moscaritolo. "We need to know what the impact of that could be."
Moscaritolo declined to comment on the impact his study could have on future of the convention center, which the MCCA recently decided to reduce in size due to cost overruns. He did emphasize that the purpose of the report was to develop marketing strategies for the center as well as to look at issues and trends in the marketplace.
"We're doing this because we need the information," he says. "In the original report, there was no mention of the convention center hotel and no mention of the Hyatt Hotels at Fan Pier. Secretary Crosby asked us to look at what changed. Even if the Pioneer Report had not been released, we would be doing this."
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