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The Group Travel Leader Going on Faith Select Traveler

Texas-Size 
Suburbs

Brenham

Brenham packs more than its fair share of personality and history into a town with a permanent population of just over 15,000 thanks to its position at the heart of historic Washington County, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed in 1836.

Directly outside the Houston metro area, on I-290 on the way to Austin, Brenham is not a suburban destination you choose for its easy airport access, but to feel far away without going too far.

The 293-acre Washington-on-the-Brazos Park, home to Texas’s Independence Hall, where the state’s Declaration of Independence was signed, has a conference center in addition to its living-history farm and frequent historical re-enactments. The conference center has a capacity of 400, and the park includes two smaller indoor spaces with park views and three outdoor spaces, including a 2,115-seat amphitheater.

Though Brenham doesn’t have any traditional full-service hotels, country locations like the Southern Rose Ranch Bed and Breakfast, the Inn at Dos Brisas and the Lillian Farms Country Estate offer an upscale ranch atmosphere for small group gatherings.

“We’re geared toward small meetings rather than large meetings,” said Lu Hollander, public relations manager for the Brenham and Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We’re good for meetings of 100 or less.”

Though it is not directly in Brenham, an antique fair that comes to a nearby town for two to three weeks every March and September gobbles up “every piece of lodging for about 50 miles around, so we try to discourage anyone from trying to plan anything during that time,” said Hollander.

www.visitbrenhamtexas.com

 

Arlington

Like Grapevine, Arlington is located between Dallas and Fort Worth and convenient to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, but it offers an entirely different flavor. Though Grapevine routinely hosts events with global scale, Arlington is ideal for a small group that would rather be a big fish in a little pond than get lost in the ocean.

“You don’t have to be 5,000 people for us to put forth top-notch sales amenities and service,” said April Luter, tourism sales manager for the Arlington Convention and Visitors Bureau. “Our sales and servicing people think our groups are the most important thing in the world, regardless of the size of the meeting. We’re the ones that are going to call Six Flags and make those connections for you.”

Within the Dallas-Fort Worth area, many locals know Arlington best as the city where the local teams play, and the CVB has multiple ways meeting groups coming through town can take advantage of these local landmarks.

At both AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, and Globe Life Park, where the Texas Rangers play, meeting planners have a variety of space options for small group events during the day or evening, whether there is a game or not. If your group is in town on game day, however, the CVB can also arrange a private tailgating event to get into the local spirit.

The full-service Sheraton Arlington Hotel, which has 16 meeting rooms with 27,000 square feet of meeting space, is the closest hotel to the Arlington Convention Center, with 50,000 square feet of exhibit space, a 30,000-square-foot grand hall and 8,500 additional square feet of meeting space. Though Arlington’s hotels and attractions are too spread out for visitors to walk easily from one to the other, the entertainment district and ballparks and many of the full-service hotels are connected by regular trolley service.

www.arlington.org