National Veterans Memorial and Museum and COSI in Downtown Columbus Ohio. Photo by Randall L. Schieber

There is a growing trend of hosting corporate and incentive meetings in second-tier cities, which can provide a cost savings as well as a change of pace for groups that have frequented the same big cities year after year. Knowland, a leading provider of data-as-a-service insights on meetings and events for hospitality, reported this past January that meetings and events in secondary markets outpaced the traditional Top 25 markets.

Louisville

Cities such as Louisville, Kentucky, were on the list of top five secondary markets by YOY growth in event volume. Louisville is an affordable destination, centrally located within a day’s drive of over half the U.S. population. Home to the Kentucky Derby and the 2024 PGA Championship, groups can utilize the city’s venue space at iconic attractions such as the Kentucky Derby Museum, Muhammad Ali Center, and Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory.

Louisville is also one of the few cities in the country with two convention centers. The Kentucky Exposition Center (KEC) is the sixth largest convention center in the U.S., while the Kentucky International Convention Center (KICC) is centrally located among downtown’s 6,300 rooms.

The city’s largest hotel, The Galt House Hotel, Trademark Collection by Wyndham, offers more than 1,300 guest rooms and a total of 130,000 sf of meeting space. Louisville is also investing in adding to and upgrading its hotel inventory with new boutique properties and a $25 million renovation of The Crowne Plaza Louisville Airport Center, a 588-room property with 50,000 sf of event space.

In addition, Churchill Downs recently opened the $90 million Derby City Gaming Downtown across from the KICC. The 43,000-sf, two-story Kentucky Derby-themed entertainment venue includes a gaming floor and offers groups rentable event space. Corporate planners are choosing Louisville for its location and affordability. “Louisville was chosen due to the very attractive hotel rates,” says Mary Haley, executive director and meeting planner for Sonitrol, who recently planned a meeting for about 350 attendees at the Omni Louisville Hotel. “Food and beverage prices are very reasonable. That is extremely important to a budget. I was able to have premium food offerings for a lot less than what I could do in a first-tier city for basic food.”

Louisville was also attractive for its accessibility and central location, Haley says, including ample airlift to its Louisville Muhammed Ali International Airport, which is undergoing $500 million in improvements, and drivability from many of Sonitrol’s franchise locations. She also says the city’s walkable attractions and restaurants from downtown hotels was a plus. “I did an event at Churchill Downs which was a major hit. They were extremely easy to work with and reasonably priced for an outside event,” Haley says.

She adds, “Feedback from the attendees was amazing. It became one of the highest rated conventions I’ve ever done, primarily, due to the great pricing and the friendliness of the city. To be able to advertise events at an iconic place like Churchill Downs didn’t hurt.”

Haley also benefitted from the Louisville CVB, which she says was the best she has worked with, helping to offer unique touches to the program and make attendees feel at home with welcome signs at the airport and throughout downtown.

Richmond

Richmond, Virginia also reached the Top 5 for second cities in January on Knowland’s list. The 700,000-sf Greater Richmond Convention Center, with a walkable surrounding area that features restaurants and shops, is connected by skywalk to the Richmond Marriott Hotel. With 413 rooms and 27,000 sf of flexible event space, the Richmond Marriott Hotel can accommodate groups up to 2,000.

The Hilton Richmond Downtown is another anchor hotel. Nearby are also the Delta Hotels Richmond Downtown and Omni Richmond Hotel, making Richmond available to 500 or 600 attendees for citywide conventions or events.

The local CVB, Richmond Region Tourism  helps planners build relationships with the local business community. “We tell clients, ‘If you bring your group to Richmond, we’ve got a destination services team that works to make sure the community knows that you’re here,” says Jerrine Lee, vice president of sales, Richmond Region Tourism. “Depending on the size of your group, we might even do airport signage to welcome you to the city.”

Richmond is easily accessible by air, servicing a variety of major and low-cost carriers at the Richmond International Airport, and the city is within a day’s drive of half of the U.S. population.

Richmond offers outdoor activities such as rafting Class III and IV rapids downtown along the James River, and a vibrant arts scene, including the Museum of Contemporary Art and Edgar Allen Poe Museum. The Scotts Addition neighborhood is trending with breweries and wineries, restaurants and entertainment.

Offsite venues include the Common House in the Richmond Arts District near the convention center. They are a private club, but they work with the CVB to host groups for offsite receptions in its indoor and outdoor space.

During summer 2025, Richmond will debut the new Riverfront Amphitheater downtown with 7,500-person capacity. According to Lee, the new six-story boutique hotel Shenandoah Mansions will open this fall, with a bar, café and nearby hotels with meeting space.

Jolene Boatright, CEO/president, JEMS Hospitality Group, which helps plan some 300-plus meetings a year, says second tier cities like a Richmond have become even more important since the pandemic, because of the fallout from large companies canceling meetings in top-tier cities, and rescheduling.

“All these big associations had to reschedule their meetings years out 2026 to 2030, so now it makes it very difficult for a corporation to find a home in a major city. That’s why a city like Richmond becomes very popular,” Boatright says.

She uses Richmond Regional Tourism for help in planning and keeping costs low. “I can’t say enough good things about how they’re really creative and how they make the city work,” she says. “They can add dollars or a rebate right to your rooms to incentivize the company to come.”

An example is a group booking 1,000 or 500 room nights. “They’ll say, ‘If your group has this many room nights during this timeframe, we’ll give you $5,000 towards a credit towards your master bill that you can use for anything that you’d like during your meeting. So that could add food and beverage, a function, activities or gifting.”

Columbus

Ohio’s capital city, Columbus, offers another second-tier option with a central location for corporate and incentive planners. Columbus is within 550 miles of nearly half the nation’s population. The city’s Greater Columbus Convention Center (GCCC) recently completed its $140-million renovation and expansion. GCCC offers 373,000 sf of contiguous exhibit space, 75 meeting rooms, a 74,000-sf ballroom, 4,700 on-site parking spaces and 2,700 connected hotel rooms. Columbus is expanding. One up and coming neighborhood, The Peninsula, opened in downtown last year, anchored by Columbus’ first independent lifestyle hotel, The Junto. Coming in late 2024, Phase II, will get underway and is expected to be complete in 2027. Construction has also begun on the 32-story, $345-million development called The Merchant Building next to Columbus’ nearly 150-year-old public North Market, which features independent merchants, farmers and makers. The project, which is expected to finish by 2025, includes a new 162-room lifestyle hotel. The ninth floor will offer a 5,000-sf ballroom with an adjoining terrace, along with a junior ballroom, meeting rooms and pre-function space, totaling 17,000 sf. “Columbus was such a hidden gem,” Andrea Naab, senior director of corporate & retail events for Best Buy Co., says. “The city has so much to offer. We were really impressed by the proximity of everything. The convention center, hotels and restaurants all within close walking distance was a surprise to us. We booked one of our annual meetings two years in a row.”

Naab says there are several benefits to booking a second-tier city like Columbus, including cost-savings, exposure to different locations for their attendees and superb service. “Our organization has been impressed at the level of customer service we often receive in second-tier cities, and our attendees are excited to explore a city they might not normally have prioritized traveling to,” she says. “Most of all, we’ve been able to reap cost efficiency benefits when compared to most first-tier cities.”

The budget is a significant determining factor for the company, including not just room rate and F&B minimums, but additional items such as average airfare paired with drivability for their attendees. “We found it was a very cost-effective city to book in and further increased our savings by negotiating a two-year contract for our annual event.”

Salt Lake City

Utah’s Salt Lake City is gaining popularity for business travel, including corporate and incentive groups. Salt Lake’s hotel occupancy rate in 2023 matched its 2019 occupancy. A new Hyatt Regency attached to the Salt Palace Convention Center, which opened last year, has led to an increase in planner interest, according to Tyson Lybbert, chief sales officer for Visit Salt Lake.

Le Meridien and Element hotels are recent additions, and later this fall the Marriott Autograph Collection hotel called the Asher Adams is set to open downtown. Currently, there are some 8,000 hotel rooms in the vicinity of the Salt Palace Convention Center, which offers, 515,000 sf of exhibit space and 164,000 sf of meeting space.

“Our typical convention size that uses the Salt Palace Convention Center is somewhere between 3,500 and 10,000 attendees, with our largest shows being as large as 30,000 attendees,” Lybbert says.  “We also have several options for large single hotel groups, like the Grand and Little America hotels which are spectacular and worth exploring if you are looking to place a 1,500-person event.”

The economic stability and growth in Utah are partially responsible for drawing corporate groups, as corporations in the tech and financial sectors are basing themselves in the city. “Corporate growth has brought an increased desire to meet in Salt Lake, and we project corporate meetings will be our fastest growing segment over the next five years,” Lybbert says. “In addition to the investment in infrastructure like our new international airport, the legislature just authorized up to $2 billion to further develop Salt Lake City. We are excited about our momentum and are bullish about the future.”

Attractions to this Olympic city include its proximity to the Rocky Mountains, which allows easy access to hiking and biking trails for attendees.

Charlotte

Charlotte, North Carolina is also gaining popularity with groups. Home of NASCAR and the NASCAR Hall of Fame, as well as the NFL’s Carolina Panthers and NBA’s Hornets, Charlotte is known for its sports and sports venues, including the 20,000-seat Spectrum Center which is set for a two-phase renovation.

Groups can also explore the Queen City’s arts scene, with visits to the Mint Museum Uptown, the Mint Museum Randolph and the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art. Other popular attractions include the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts and Culture and the Discovery Place Science Museum.

In 2021, a $127 million expansion of the Charlotte Convention Center added more than 50,000 sf to the facility. New hotels such as the Grand Bohemian and JW Marriott Charlotte bring the total to 6,400 rooms within the bustling Uptown area. Charlotte is also easily accessible for drive markets and an American Airlines hub. Charlotte Douglas International Airport is the eighth busiest airport in the world.

“Charlotte reminds me of Austin 15 years ago,” says Tom Dolan, director of sales & marketing, JW Marriott Charlotte. “It makes all the Top 10 lists of places to live and work. We have a large university population in this region, giving us a really strong and educated workforce with kids finishing school and wanting to stay in Charlotte.”

In addition, being a new city for many attendees outside the Southeast, Charlotte attracts those who want to mix business with exploration in a different destination. “We see that with attendance at some of the larger citywide events — some are coming because they want to explore,” Dolan says.

Milwaukee

Milwaukee, Wisconsin is also well known for its cultural treasures, such as the Milwaukee Art Museum on the shores of Lake Michigan and the Harley-Davidson Museum, which offers a unique offsite option for buyouts or smaller receptions among its vast collection.

This year, the city hosted the Republican National Convention and showed off its $456 million expansion of the Baird Center — formerly known as the Wisconsin Center — which doubles the convention center space to more than 1.3 million sf.

The Pfister Hotel, which has been welcoming guests for more than 130 years, recently renovated its 7th-floor meeting rooms, conference rooms and event spaces, and is undergoing a restoration of its lobby. The Pfister Hotel houses the largest collection of Victorian artworks of any hotel in the world.

New options for groups include The Trade Hotel, An Autograph Collection Hotel by Marriott across from Fiserv Forum, home to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Anchorage & Ketchikan

For a truly unique experience, Alaska features several second-tier cities including Anchorage. “Meetings held in Anchorage typically enjoy a 20 percent increase in attendance over previous years,” says David Kasser, senior vice president of tourism development and sales with Visit Anchorage.

Anchorage has seen a 10-20 percent increase in meeting’s revenues since 2019, according to Kasser. “Planners attending Anchorage events and seminars learn about cultural experiences, culinary offerings, competitive rates, low lodging tax, lodging options and truly Alaskan adventures offered throughout the year.”

For incentives, Ketchikan is a 90-minute flight from Seattle and offers access to remote island getaways, such as Waterfall Resort, a 52-acre property located on Prince of Wales Island near Ketchikan. Attendees board a floatplane in Ketchikan for the scenic flight direct to the resort’s dock, passing over Alaska’s famed Inside Passage and the 16.7 million-acre Tongass National Forest.

For planners, these second cities provide cost-effective solutions without having to sacrifice spending on programming. For attendees, many second-tier cities draw interest as destinations they have not explored — full of charm with cultural experiences, and local entertainment and dining options. C&IT