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The rise of Niagara Falls


Courtesy Whirlpool Jet Boat Tours

More hotels on the way
Niagara Falls’ meeting business is steady from April through June, and it picks up again in September, said Melissa Gearhart, the conference center’s director of sales and marketing. Meeting business slows in July and August, when leisure travelers, many from other countries, visit the falls in great numbers.

“There are simply not enough hotel rooms in the summer for both tourists and business meetings,” she said.

But help is on the way, said Elizabeth Davis, director of sales for the Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp.

“Four hotels in the pipeline should break ground soon, adding about 350 more guest rooms,” she said. “They include a Hilton Garden Inn, a Wyndham, a Fairfield Inn and a Courtyard by Marriott.”

Sheraton is a staple
The 392-room Sheraton at the Falls hotel is the downtown staple. It became a Sheraton two years ago and is making improvements that mark the Starwood brand including a Link@Sheraton social space in the lobby where guests can gather to relax, surf the web, or watch a game on television.

Guest rooms are being completely renovated, and new lighting and walk-in showers have been added to bathrooms. The hotel’s 4,800-square-foot ballroom will be redone this fall.

The Sheraton also has the only Starbucks in town and a TGI Friday’s sports bar restaurant with outdoor seating and live entertainment on Wednesday nights.

Another downtown hotel, the Giacomo, is a luxury 39-room boutique hotel that opened in 2010 in a 1929 Art Deco skyscraper. What general manager Jeff Deming calls a “splendiferous suite” takes up the entire 16th floor with two bedrooms, a pool table and a kitchen.

A meeting room for 30 on the 14th floor and a lounge on the 19th floor reached only by stairs from the floor below offer stunning panoramas of the city, the raging rapids and the falls.

Nearby, the Tudor-style Red Coach Inn, built in 1923, has two banquet rooms for 50 and an outdoor terrace that overlooks the Niagara River’s upper rapids, lighted at night.

Gaming and golf

The Seneca Niagara Casino’s hotel, a AAA Four Diamond hotel that opened in 2007, is the largest in western New York, with 604 recently renovated guest rooms.

A mezzanine above the lobby is used for receptions and mini trade shows for 150. A 24,000-square-foot event center can be divided into four rooms. Two other rooms that total 3,500 square feet can be divided into smaller breakouts.

The Senecas also own Hickory Stick, an 18-hole golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones, 10 minutes from downtown.

In addition to the casino, the hotel has a 400-seat theater, 10 restaurants and a spa. As part of an $8 million makeover, its Thunder Falls buffet added Mediterranean, Asian and pizza stations.