| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 21/08/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 51 |
| Copyright: Other |
Pittsburgh by Alan Moore
Business will be great when you’re downtown
Promotion eyes corporate opportunities
THE Pennsylvania city of Pittsburgh is spending part of its first European tourism budget, worth $250,000, to raise its profile in the UK as a key US corporate and business destination.The promotion will focus on US Airways’ daily Gatwick-Pittsburgh service that started last month and the $1 billion of new facilities coming on-line in the city’s downtown area. Previously, Pittsburgh has been overshadowed by the state’s more illustrious gateway of Philadelphia as a top business and convention city. But Pittsburgh’s location, gateway airport, facilities and its rapid growth is likely to change this.
Joe McGrath, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Pittsburgh Convention and Visitors Bureau, said: “We are within 500 miles of 70% of the population of North America, so the city is a great jumping-off point. Pittsburgh is also a convenient place to enter the US as our international airport is US Airways’ home base which handles more than 600 flights a day for onward connections.”
Central to the city’s promotion is a $328 million convention centre, part of which will open by January 2002. It will also include a new 750-room Hyatt hotel, with the entire complex completed by 2003.
Next April, Pittsburgh will welcome the opening of a $44 million, 320-room luxury Marriott Renaissance Hotel in the heart of the theatre and cultural districts. It follows July’s arrival of a $31.5 million, 330-room Hyatt Regency property at Pittsburgh Airport.
Pittsburgh is backing these developments with the formation of a trade show division within the business and conference travel sector of the bureau, claiming it is the first to be set up by a North American CVB.
The city has secured a major international engineering show, exposition and educational conference for next March for about 1,500 delegates.
Another project as part of the investment plan is the $800 million redevelopment of the waterfront where the River Monorgahela snakes round the city.
It will include a river-front park, sports stadium, aquarium, ampitheatre and cruise-boat terminal, all to be completed by the end of next year.
McGrath sees shopping as another major pull for visitors, with Pennsylvania zero rating tax on clothing. In addition, Pittsburgh is close to approving plans for a $700 million retail complex that would cover four blocks and house the city’s fifth department store.
Pulling power: the state’s zero rating tax on clothing is a major pull for visitors
Entering the market: Pittsburgh is being pushed as a convenient US gateway