The long-awaited Delta addition to the Opryland Hotel Convention Center in Nashville arrived on June 1, right on time. Some 3.7 million room-nights are already contracted through the year 2013 at what is now the world's largest hotel/convention center complex, offering 2,879 rooms and 600,000 square feet of meeting space.
Sixty percent of its meeting business is association and approximately 40 percent is corporate, says Jerry Wayne, vice president of marketing for the hotel, which does 80 percent of its business in the meetings market. The immensity of the property, now ranked as the 21st largest convention center and the sixth largest hotel in the U.S., means Opryland competes in the big leagues-with cities, not hotels. "The National Association for Home Care is coming in October, and they've blocked 2,800 rooms," says James R. Stewart, director of association sales. They'll also use some 1,200 overflow hotel rooms.
The 4.5-acre Delta is under a 15-story glass dome that encompasses 988 guest rooms. Cross over a river via one of several bridges, and you've entered the Delta Court-an island "village" with a waterfall, an 85-foot fountain, and passenger flatboats floating by. A 400-seat restaurant, Beauregard's, is the centerpiece of the Delta.