Stark County expects benefit from GOP confab

By ROBERT WANG

Repository staff writer

CANTON

With the eyes of the world on them, thousands of Republican delegates and alternates from around the country will assemble in July at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland to choose the Republican nominee for president.

But some already are choosing or considering making a stop an hour away, in Stark County. And people attending the convention may be staying there for several nights in some of Stark County’s 2,900 hotel rooms.

Though the convention will be 60 miles away, the local tourism industry is expected to share some of the economic windfall generated by this major political event. And Visit Canton, which formerly was the Stark County Convention and Visitors Bureau, isn’t going to pass up the opportunity to promote the area to the thousands of visitors heading to the Republican National Convention.

Already, the Republican Party of New Mexico has booked the event hall of the Pro Football Hall of Fame for a luncheon right before the convention, to be attended by the state’s 24 delegates.

“We’re going to be in Ohio, and it’s the Pro Football Hall of Fame. We want to see it,” said Tucker Keene, a spokesman for the Republican Party of New Mexico. “I guess it’s one of the things you do in Ohio when you go to Ohio.”

Pete Fierle, the chief of staff and vice president of communications for the Hall of Fame, said the Republican parties for California and Nebraska are in discussions with the Hall. They’re considering setting up tours of the Hall of Fame for delegates to be led by Hall of Famers from their states. In addition, the Hall of Fame is in talks to have some kind of presence in or near the convention site to promote itself.

Visit Canton said the convention has booked a high percentage of rooms at the McKinley Grand Hotel, which has 165 rooms in downtown Canton, and the La Quinta Inn and Suites, which has 98 rooms, on the hill overlooking Everhard Road Northwest in Plain Township. Both are managed or owned by Pacific Pearl Hotels and are sold out for the convention period, which is from July 18 to 21.

Holiday Inn Canton in Belden Village also has set aside an unspecified number of rooms for the RNC’s use, according to the hotel’s general manager Cerrie DeBos. The hotel will have 184 rooms after the conclusion of its renovations next month.

With many delegates still to be selected in many states, rooms apparently have not yet been assigned.

Mary Vlahos, vice president of sales for Visit Canton, said many of the 30 Stark County-area hotel properties Visit Canton recommends declined to agree to the convention’s terms to get its hotel business.

Hotels had to guarantee they were offering the lowest possible rates, had to set aside at least 90 percent of their nonsuite rooms, 100 percent of suites and the convention reserved the right to cancel 10 days before the booking without penalty. And with the hotels being an hour from Cleveland, it seemed likely the rooms would be among the first to be canceled if they were not needed.

Vlahos said the RNC wants nearly exclusive access to a hotel’s rooms because they don’t want shuttle buses “to stop at 50 hotels picking up 15 people each.”

The RNC contract also requires that hotels get the RNC’s approval to allow anyone else to stay in the same hotel if its “business or field of interest conflicts or competes with the Convention or involves media or political affiliation.” This would apparently apply to protesters or journalists covering the convention.

Many local hotels, however, were less amenable to agreeing to the conditions with July being a busy time of year with the Bridgestone Invitational World Golf Championships, the Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement festival and youth sports tournaments, said Tonja Marshall, Visit Canton’s vice president of marketing and communications.