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Major Tennessee markets have completed recent hotel and convention expansions, or announced plans for them, and the movement has filtered to up-and-coming, peripheral markets. These newcomers hope to lure fresh travel dollars with accessibility, greater value and family-friendly amenities ranging from high-end shopping to spa retreats. All that newly minted meeting space prompts the question, is there enough business to go around?

Middle Tennessee's conventions business is in the midst of significant expansion. Plans for a new Nashville convention center are "out of the blocks," says Convention and Visitors Bureau president and CEO Butch Spyridon. In January, the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency released recommendations for a $595 million, 375,000-square-foot convention center. Spyridon deems the existing facility inadequate for today's market, citing business lost in recent years to market competitors such as Atlanta, Dallas, and New Orleans.

Spyridon estimated the project will be complete by 2011 and will include an 800 to 1,000-room attached hotel. Several hotel developers are interested, he says. "We're working on a parallel track to make sure the hotel is part of the project. It's a critical part of the success of the new convention center."

With Nashville's hotel occupancy rate hovering at 65%, "I think we'll have a solid year, but 2008 will be about absorbing new supply and weathering the economic slowdown," he says. Meanwhile, Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center will break ground in late 2008 on a $400 million addition that includes a 400-suite wing and 400,000 square feet of meeting space—bringing total inventory to 3,281 hotel rooms and more than one million square feet of convention space. Groundbreaking is scheduled for the fourth quarter, with an anticipated completion date of 2011. The demand exists, say hotel officials, citing Gaylord's 81% occupancy rate—its highest since the early 1990s—and the fact that the hotel turned away an average $2 million in room nights in 2006.

Gaylord is also investing $45 million in a restaurant and entertainment overhaul to target a younger audience. The project includes three new restaurants and a 15,000-square-foot, Vegas-style nightclub and a Mexican cantina. Gaylord has hired a well-known nightclub designer for the project, which has been heralded in industry publications as a departure from the area's predominantly "honky-tonk nightlife." The first phase of the renovation opened in fall 2007 and the second phase—the nightclub and restaurants, also known as "The District"—is scheduled to open in late 2008.

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