by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
Last month’s floods in Tennessee were devastating for the state’s residents, and the disaster redirected a group that planned to hold its national meeting at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville.
Jacksonville’s hospitality industry took action and helped the American Association of Professional Coders relocate its meeting Downtown.
Two thousand delegates began checking in Sunday, filling Downtown’s five hotels to capacity. They began checking out Wednesday after four days of meetings, seminars and a trade show at the Osborn Center.
It was the first success for the Jacksonville Convention Center Alliance, said Lyndsay Rossman, spokesperson for Visit Jacksonville. The citywide convention sales and marketing effort began last month, just in time to assist the group, which had to find an alternative – and fast – to the flooded facility in the Music City.
“We’ve made it easy for meeting planners to bring groups to Jacksonville,” said Rossman. “Now everything they need from hotel rooms to the convention center can be booked with one contract.”
The group accounted for an estimated 5,200 room nights and the convention’s schedule left each evening open for delegates to explore Jacksonville’s restaurants and other entertainment venues. That adds up to an estimated economic impact of more than $2.5 million, said Rossman.
The Jacksonville Transportation Authority also pitched in by operating the Skyway on Sunday to make it easy for the visitors to navigate Downtown.
The AAPC consists of health care support professionals who put the numerical codes on medical records and insurance reimbursement documents. Because of that, the group also contributed to Visit Jacksonville’s marketing efforts to brand the city as “America’s Health Center,” she said.
“Another great thing is the AAPC is 90 percent women and the trend is for women to be the decision makers when it comes to leisure travel,” said Rossman. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of these delegates here again for personal vacations and it’s a national group, so they’re taking Jacksonville’s message back home with them all over the country.”
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