Convention and meeting bookers have seen the light.
A dozen religious meetings were slated for Orange County this year. They’ll bring about 100,000 people to town,almost 10% of the total conventioneers expected in 2006.
Attendees at these conventions are expected to drop about $73.5 million into Anaheim and OC coffers.
The healthcare sector this year had 10 conventions on the calendar, accounting for roughly 60,000 attendees. Delegate spending by those groups is estimated at $52 million.
Lower delegate spending is one reason some cities overlook the religious sector in healthy economic times.
But Anaheim is happy to have a share of this market.
“They sell hotel rooms and keep people employed,” said Charles Ahlers, president of the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau.
With the number of religious conferences growing at an 8% clip in the U.S., and attendance that has tripled to 12.9 million during the past decade, it’s a sector that more cities are courting.
More than 2,000 religious conventions were held in Western states in 2005.
Religious groups often hit town in the summer months,a time when fewer association and corporate groups hold events.
That makes it easier for these groups to book the dates they want while filling calendar slots that might otherwise go unused at convention centers.
While summer also is the height of OC’s tourist season, the big hotels count on a mix of leisure and meetings business to boost overall occupancy.
Religious conventions help.
Members of the Religious Conference Management Association held 17,545 meetings in the U.S. last year. A third of those required 50 to 200 hotel rooms each night, the association said.
Religious meeting delegates spend an average of 4.1 days in OC, compared to just 2.8 days for other convention attendees. Conventioneers staying in hotels in OC spend an average of $185 per day.
OC’s religious conventions and conferences this year range from a 30-person board meeting to 41,000 people who attended the Religious Education Congress in the spring.
While attendees come to renew their faith or conduct church business, organizers look to other factors when choosing a location.
In OC, those factors include the 8,500 hotel rooms within walking distance of the Anaheim Convention Center, the perceived safety of the destination and the ease of tacking on some family time at Disneyland or other county attractions, said a spokesperson with the Religious Education Congress.
The organization, sponsored by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Office of Religious Education, is the nation’s largest annual gathering of Roman Catholics.
The Congress also features a youth day, which inspires some parents to bring their children and spend some time at Disneyland once the events are over.
The Congress typically uses a couple of hotel ballrooms for sessions as well as the Anaheim Convention Center.
Only two-thirds of religious conventions include exhibits. The Religious Education Congress is one of them.
This year, more than 400 exhibitors signed up to showcase products ranging from religious art and music to publishing houses and schools,almost double the number that exhibited in 2004.
Burbank-based Southern California Renewal Communities expects about 13,000 attendees at its annual convention coming up in two weeks.
“Having hotels in walking distance of the convention center is the first reason that we come back every year,” said event coordinator Barbara Lambert.
Another reason is that people feel safe in the campus environment, she said.
Though many attendees are coming from the region, Lambert said a lot of them count on combining the annual convention with vacation time at Disneyland and other area attractions.
Lambert said the group looked at the Los Angeles Convention Center, but decided the hotels were too far away and worried that fewer attendees would stay to vacation after the event.
Southern California Renewal Communities uses the Anaheim Arena as well as “every floor” at the convention center, Lambert said.
Other large religious gatherings in Anaheim this year included 12,000 attendees for Kenneth Copeland Ministries in early July and the United Methodist Women Quadrennial Assembly in May.
Kenneth Copeland was in town the same time as the Japanese Animation convention, Anime, also held at the Convention Center.
A small worry for Anaheim when courting the religious market: only 11.3% of these events were at convention centers last year, down slightly from 12% in 2004.
Downtown hotels and conference centers, meanwhile, gained ground as favorite spots among Religious Conference Management Association members, snagging about a third of the overall business.
Coastal OC might benefit from a different trend: resort hotels drew 11.6% of religious meetings in 2005, up from 6% a decade
ago.
