08-11-99 Regular Meeting of La Porte Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone Board

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~ J" EXECUTIVE SUMMARY II-3 the city. A moderate secondary market is expected to come from the remaining parts of the state and the surrounding states. The competitive environment for the Conference Center will consist of a combination of full- service hotels in the identified primary market area of eastlsoutheast Houston from Houston Hobby Airport eastward, and from the conference/resort oriented facilities in the region surrounding Houston, extending from Lake Conroe and The Woodlands, to the north and to Galveston to the southeast. The operational success of these conference centers suggests a significant opportunity for the proposed hotel and conference center. The competitive hotels are primarily those with significant amounts of reasonable quality meeting space. These hotels currently accommodate the great majority of off- premise corporate and association meetings held in the defined market. The Sylvan Beach Hotel & Conference Center should have both a local and a near-in regional competitive advantage compared to these hotels based on its planned facilities, pricing and resort environment. This should enable its positioning as one of only two bona fide conference centers to the southeast of Houston in the region extending to the Gulf of Mexico at Galveston. The anticipated result is the presentation of a high quality meeting center within the City of La Porte, which should attract substantial demand from outside of the local area. This in turn will support the operations of the hoteL thereby justifying a more comprehensive and higher quality overall facility. Interviews and survey research of executives and full-time meeting planners of potential corporate and state association demand sources were conducted for this engagement, with a strong