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The wave of corporate growth swamping New Jersey has spawned a new creature -- the executive conference center.
In recent years one such center has expanded in Princeton and another is planned there. Just north in Morristown yet another recently broke ground.
"The area is booming," says Andrew Dolce, president of Hamilton Park Executive Conference Center, which broke ground in June. "Against hotels, conference centers don't have the greatest piece of the share, but we have the know-how and the service to attract (executive business)."
Morris County has big names
There's a lot of business to draw from. Headquartered in Morris County are Allied Signal, Warner-Lambert, Schering-Plough, Nabisco and BASF. "That's not all: 20% to 22% of the Fortune 500 have major regional offices here," says J. William Brooks, vice president of the Morris County Chamber of Commerce.
If all goes according to schedule, there will also be six executive conference centers in the area by 1990: Morristown's Hamilton Park, Jamesburg's Inn at Forsgate, and expanded Scanticon Center in Princeton, the Merrill Lynch Conference and Training Center, the Henry Chauncey Conference Center in Princeton, and the Continuing Education Center-Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
Observers believe the boom area can sustain the new activities. But as the competition heats up, conference centers are being forced to differentiate themselves from each other and from hotels providing similar services.
"There was a pent-up demand in the area for this kind of service," says consultant John Marenzana, a former president of the International Association of Conference Centers. Still, he says, "The key thing is to think, 'What are we providing to the marketplace as conference centers so we don't confuse them?'"
Conference centers don't like to be compared with convention centers or hotels. As distinct from the former they are small -- typically around 300 rooms -- and remote; unlike the latter, their facilities are dedicated to meetings, and they disdain overnight trade.
But hotels want that business because it is increasingly lucrative. "We are a hotel, but our conference center can compete with any in the world," says David Cooperman, assistant director of sales at the new...