We were able to celebrate that success at the 2016 Meet Minneapolis Annual Meeting earlier today. We welcomed nearly 500 partners, stakeholders and friends to the award-winning Minneapolis Convention Center to celebrate the past year, but more importantly, to focus on the future.

We announced today that Minneapolis saw its best year ever in hospitality in 2015, achieving highs in hotel occupancy, convention center revenue, future hotel room nights booked and future events and conventions booked, among other measures, and topping the records set in 2014.

Meet Minneapolis is responsible for achieving the annual goals in its contract with the City of Minneapolis including key performance indicators, and all were met with record success in 2015: 589,000 future hotel room nights booked for meetings, conventions, sporting events and leisure travelers, more than $2.4 million in private revenue earned and $18.1 million in revenue earned at the Minneapolis Convention Center, which is the highest revenue recorded for the facility in its history.

The Meet Minneapolis team joined with our hospitality partners to the achieve the city’s all-time record high hotel occupancy rate of 74 percent as well as an all-time record high of $153 for our annual average daily hotel rate.

Some of the major events our team secured for the future in 2015 include:

• 2019 Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (47,000 room nights)
• 2018 – 2022 Midwest Poultry Federation (2,200 room nights in each of five years)
• 2021 American Veterinary Medical Association (14,000 room nights)
• 2017 Neighborworks America (8,500 room nights)
• 2015 – 2019 US Open Racquetball (2,340 room nights in each of five years)
• 2017 USA Volleyball (two events with 84,380 total room nights)

None of what we have reported on would happen without dedicated and experienced people leading the way, and Minneapolis now boasts 32,905 leisure and hospitality industry jobs, which is 10 percent of all jobs in the city. The local industry is well represented by our immigrant and minority communities who can use such jobs to enter the workforce and seek career growth opportunities. We cannot thank all of these ladies and gentlemen enough for what they do.

Among the other successes we noted were the successful launch of Sports Minneapolis to further its reach in the sports arena by recruiting, enhancing and producing sporting events that benefit the community. We also opened Minneapolis Visitor Information on Nicollet, a unique facility combining Shop (locally made and inspired artisan products in partnership with St. Croix Retail), Move (partnering with Move Minneapolis for bicycling, rideshare and transit services) and Find (visitor information services) on the corner of Nicollet Mall and 5th Street in the CenterPoint Energy building.

My personal highlight of the annual meeting program was the opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of my friend and colleague, Todd Klingel. Todd is completing a stellar quarter century of service to the business community and having him on stage gave all of us in attendance a chance to thank him for the impact he has had. We were also able to honor Jeff Hamiel, retiring executive director of the Metropolitan Airports Commission, with our President's Award. Take a look at all of our 2015 award winners.

Attendees at the annual meeting had a chance to participate in the first public feedback gathering session for Destination Transformation: 2030. This tourism master planning initiative will be co-chaired by Mayor Betsy Hodges, Bob Lux of Alatus LLC, and David Berg, the CEO of Carlson. The exercise yielded a number of great ideas we will incorporate in our planning as we move forward. We look forward to receiving feedback from all sectors on how we can be a significantly stronger destination by the year 2030.

So thanks again for those of our partners and supporters who attended today. 2016 is destined to be another fantastic year that we can all celebrate this time next year!

We were able to celebrate that success at the 2016 Meet Minneapolis Annual Meeting earlier today. We welcomed nearly 500 partners, stakeholders and friends to the award-winning Minneapolis Convention Center to celebrate the past year, but more importantly, to focus on the future.

We announced today that Minneapolis saw its best year ever in hospitality in 2015, achieving highs in hotel occupancy, convention center revenue, future hotel room nights booked and future events and conventions booked, among other measures, and topping the records set in 2014.

Meet Minneapolis is responsible for achieving the annual goals in its contract with the City of Minneapolis including key performance indicators, and all were met with record success in 2015: 589,000 future hotel room nights booked for meetings, conventions, sporting events and leisure travelers, more than $2.4 million in private revenue earned and $18.1 million in revenue earned at the Minneapolis Convention Center, which is the highest revenue recorded for the facility in its history.

The Meet Minneapolis team joined with our hospitality partners to the achieve the city’s all-time record high hotel occupancy rate of 74 percent as well as an all-time record high of $153 for our annual average daily hotel rate.

Some of the major events our team secured for the future in 2015 include:

• 2019 Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (47,000 room nights)
• 2018 – 2022 Midwest Poultry Federation (2,200 room nights in each of five years)
• 2021 American Veterinary Medical Association (14,000 room nights)
• 2017 Neighborworks America (8,500 room nights)
• 2015 – 2019 US Open Racquetball (2,340 room nights in each of five years)
• 2017 USA Volleyball (two events with 84,380 total room nights)

None of what we have reported on would happen without dedicated and experienced people leading the way, and Minneapolis now boasts 32,905 leisure and hospitality industry jobs, which is 10 percent of all jobs in the city. The local industry is well represented by our immigrant and minority communities who can use such jobs to enter the workforce and seek career growth opportunities. We cannot thank all of these ladies and gentlemen enough for what they do.

Among the other successes we noted were the successful launch of Sports Minneapolis to further its reach in the sports arena by recruiting, enhancing and producing sporting events that benefit the community. We also opened Minneapolis Visitor Information on Nicollet, a unique facility combining Shop (locally made and inspired artisan products in partnership with St. Croix Retail), Move (partnering with Move Minneapolis for bicycling, rideshare and transit services) and Find (visitor information services) on the corner of Nicollet Mall and 5th Street in the CenterPoint Energy building.

My personal highlight of the annual meeting program was the opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of my friend and colleague, Todd Klingel. Todd is completing a stellar quarter century of service to the business community and having him on stage gave all of us in attendance a chance to thank him for the impact he has had. We were also able to honor Jeff Hamiel, retiring executive director of the Metropolitan Airports Commission, with our President's Award. Take a look at all of our 2015 award winners.

Attendees at the annual meeting had a chance to participate in the first public feedback gathering session for Destination Transformation: 2030. This tourism master planning initiative will be co-chaired by Mayor Betsy Hodges, Bob Lux of Alatus LLC, and David Berg, the CEO of Carlson. The exercise yielded a number of great ideas we will incorporate in our planning as we move forward. We look forward to receiving feedback from all sectors on how we can be a significantly stronger destination by the year 2030.

So thanks again for those of our partners and supporters who attended today. 2016 is destined to be another fantastic year that we can all celebrate this time next year!