Courtesy Visit Bloomington
Bloomington
“How many places can you have milk and cookies delivered to you at 3 a.m.?” asked Erin Erdmann, convention sales and travel media manager for Visit Bloomington in Bloomington, Ind.
Bloomington is home to Indiana University (IU) and to a local business that will deliver cookies in the middle of the night to college students. Easy access to such nocturnal noshing probably isn’t a top priority for a meeting planner, but Erdmann’s example makes a point. Because it is a small town with a big university, Bloomington delivers amenities both quirky and downright beneficial.
“The impact of being a university town is huge,” said Erdmann. “IU is one of the biggest selling points of bringing groups in.”
Bloomington, in the hills of south central Indiana, has a population of more than 80,000, including 40,000 IU students.
“The university brings in additional amenities, such as restaurants, attractions, museums, more walkable space, live musical performances and nightlife, which everyone can participate in,” said Erdmann. “After all, we have the same meeting facilities that other towns our size have, but the opportunities afforded to us because of the university are tremendous.”
The city’s 112 locally owned restaurants are an example. “We have an international restaurant district one block south of Kirkwood Avenue, the main street where the campus and community meet,” said Erdmann.”
Such dining establishments could be why Bloomington was ranked one of the Best Small Towns for Food in America by USA Today and Rand McNally in 2012.
Among the city’s popular meeting venues, on the IU campus, is the Indiana Memorial Union Biddle Hotel and Conference Center, which includes a 186-room hotel and more than 50,000 square feet of meeting space. The conference center has a 400-seat theater, 19 meeting rooms, a grand hall and banquet rooms.
“Alumni Hall, the most prestigious room in the building, was recently reopened in June after being restored to its original grandeur and gifted a 2,838-pipe pipe organ,” said Erdmann. “It’s an amazing space and can seat up to 650 people.”
An attached solarium and a patio are part of the restoration.
IU also provides housing in dorms for as many as 7,000 in the summer. Nearly 2,000 hotel rooms are within a 20-minute drive of downtown Bloomington, including 285 hotel rooms downtown. Two hotels to open in 2014 will add 330 rooms in the downtown entertainment and arts district, a 60-square-block area.
The Bloomington Monroe County Convention Center, with 24,000 square feet of meeting space, was renovated in 2012, and an expansion is being explored, said Erdmann.
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www.visitbloomington.com
