EPCOT Enters Top 20...

[Sarangel]

...Convention Centers, that is. The following was found on the Orlando Sentinel's site:

The Epcot area of Walt Disney World is about to break into the nation's top-20 ranking of large convention centers.

When the expansion of convention space at Walt Disney World's Swan and Dolphin hotels is finished next fall, it will bring the Epcot area's total to 500,000 square feet -- equal to the total area of meeting facilities currently available in No. 20 Atlantic City.

Most of the nation's popular convention destinations have all their meeting space under one roof -- unlike the Epcot area's footage, which is spread among the Swan and Dolphin, the Boardwalk Hotel and the Yacht and Beach Club Hotel.

Still, Disney World officials boast that within a three-to-five-mile radius, their Epcot area offers not only 500,000 square feet of meeting space, but also an array of amenities: 3,000 hotel rooms, seven ballrooms, 50 restaurants and lounges, three fitness clubs and nine swimming pools.

The rankings, according to the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau's survey, place the Orange County Convention Center at No. 3, with 1.1 million square feet.

The biggest center is Chicago's McCormick Center at 2.2 million square feet, followed by Las Vegas's facility at 1.9 million.

 

[PKS44]

Meeting space is one thing, hotel space another...our national convention which draws around 20,000 people recently anounced that only Orlando, New Orleans and LA will be used as sites anymore because the cost and hotel availability plus space was too difficult elsewhere.