When it comes to visitor spending in Wisconsin, Milwaukee is the big cheese, racking up $2.6 billion in 2007. Immortalized by the classic sitcoms "Happy Days" and "Laverne & Shirley," the city last summer welcomed another legend, Harley-Davidson, in the form of a 130,000-sq.-ft.museum dedicated to the motorcycle maker. Filled with 450 vintage bikes and hundreds of thousands of artifacts, the museum, on the edge of the Menomonee River, can host 1,000 attendees indoors and up to 15,000 on the grounds.
The museum already is a premier tourist attraction, meetings venue and offsite diversion for groups convening at the Midwest Airlines Center, which has a 37,500-sq.-ft. ballroom and four exhibit halls that can be combined to provide nearly 189,000 square feet. Attached to the facility are more than 1,200 guest rooms at two convention hotels: the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee and the Hilton Milwaukee City Center.
The Hilton is wrapping up room renovations and a lobby remodel; upgrades to its meeting rooms, restaurants and exterior are expected to start shortly. In April, the Hyatt finished a facelift that included room renovations and a new front entrance, restaurant, and lounge. In their free time, Milwaukee attendees have a wealth of options to explore, including beer, fried fish and polka music at Lakefront Brewery's Palm Garden Fish Fry and the oldest certified bowling alley in the United States, which lies in the basement of Milwaukee's Holler House—and still offers personal pin setters.
North of Milwaukee, the Greater Madison Convention & Visitors Bureau last June found itself listed among the heavyweight CVBs of Las Vegas, Orlando and San Diego under the Destination Marketing Association International's accreditation program, which affirmed its conformance with best practices in destination marketing and providing group services. "Everything from our governance to having proper technology and emergency communications was scrutinized," said GMCVB president and CEO Deb Archer.
The GMCVB helps bring $1 billion in visitor spending to Madison and Dane County each year, and a significant portion comes from conventions and events at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Monona Terrace.
The facility, supported by the 240-room Hilton Madison Monona Terrace, has 85,000 square feet of meeting and event space. From its rooftop garden, attendees have panoramic views of Lake Monona and the Wisconsin State Capitol. A second hotel for Monona Terrace is in early discussions.
Originally published July 27, 2009