08-30-16 Personnel and Finance - Laserfiche WebLink

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while. Hopefully everything that has said it's going to book will book, and nothing major breaks. Our goal is to get our net customer service measurement as high as we can, and right now, year to date we are at seventy -four (74). The national average is about thirty (30), so we are very excited about that. We've set high goals for each of these categories. Councilmember Scott asked if the events that are on the books right now are based on the increase in hotel rooms or if they are based on the accommodations we have right now. Ms. Belew stated that the DoubleTree and the Courtyard will be able to handle the Masons, but the robotics events will have a county -wide effect. Councilmember Scott stated that Century Center needs the hotels, but they are able to book because of the new hotels coming, and the new hotels coming in are already going to be booked, which is kind of nice. Ms. Belew stated that they have been working closely with the Courtyard by Marriott's sales manager on these projects here. Some of them said they want to see a shovel in the ground first, of course, and there are plenty of them over there now. Councilmember Scott asked when the hotels will start across the street at the .Chocolate Cafe. Ms. Belew said that the foundation has already begun. We did the groundbreaking last Friday, which was helpful with these future bookings. We could promise it all day, but they wanted to see that we were actually digging into the dirt. Committeemember Williams- Preston asked if we've had any of the conventions for the graphic novels and such. Ms. Belew stated that one of the things that has happened in the past two (2) weeks is the Radison in Merrillville is going to be completely demolished and rebuilt, so we haven't taken the opportunity to get some of that business, and one of them is Ramacon. We have looked at some of those, but we tend to lose those to the southern part of the state. Councilmember Scott asked if there was revenue generated for the Century Center by presidential candidates' visits. Ms. Below responded what people don't realize is that we were already full. We were there in the middle of the night working to flip it for the next day, because we had a conference at the end of the week when Cruz wanted to come in, then we had a large event on Friday and Saturday that we had to flip for Bernie Sanders, which is why Sanders didn't get to be in the convention hall, Trump got it first. It was a very intense few days, but the South Bend and other Police Departments did a great job, it couldn't have gone any better than it did, and yes, we did make some revenue. Councilmember Scott asked how many days' notice they had before they came in. E