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August 2, 2021
Detroit skyline. Credit: Vito Palmisano
With nonstop flights to 150 destinations around the world; the nation’s 17th-largest convention center, TCF Center (with over 723,000 square feet of convention space); vibrant business hubs; and a determined, hard-working attitude, Detroit was poised for continued success going into 2020.
“We thought 2020 was going to be our best year ever,” said Claude Molinari, president and CEO of Visit Detroit. “We had this incredible lineup of events.”
Enter the pandemic. After more than a year of a shuttered meeting scene, the first in-person events returned to Motor City in June, and Molinari said the hospitality industry is revved up and ready for the return of groups.
34 events on books for Detroit this year, with total projected spend of $40 million
Roughly same number set for 2022 so far, with $75 million in direct spending projected
Ford Field
The Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau has booked its largest event since before the pandemic.
The 2022 North America Herbalife Nutrition Extravaganza is headed to Detroit next year.
The conference is expected to bring more than 25,000 independent distributors for the brand to Ford Field June 15-17, 2022.
Those visitors will occupy an estimated 13,600 hotel rooms throughout metro Detroit and contribute approximately $11 million in direct spending on accommodations, meals, transportation and other things, said Claude Molinari, president and CEO of the DMCVB.
At the same time, they’re warning that the suppressed revenue and occupancy could last well into 2023, and that if the shifts are permanent an undetermined number of hotels could close.
“(Detroit) is the most important region of the state with more rooms than any other portion,” said Justin Winslow, president and CEO of the Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association. “It has outsized importance to the industry overall.”
There are two key differences between the city and the rest of the state when it comes to Michigan’s nearly 1,400 hotels. The first is the concentration of rooms: There are at least 4,000 rooms in downtown Detroit and 40,000 across the region.
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