Minneapolis (March 2, 2016) --- Meet Minneapolis, Convention and Visitors Association, announced the recipients of its annual awards at the 2016 Meet Minneapolis Annual Meeting on Tuesday, March 1 at the Minneapolis Convention Center. With more than 430 partners, elected officials and other guests in attendance, Meet Minneapolis highlighted the record-setting 2015 for hospitality in Minneapolis.

“At the time, 2014 was our best year ever, but in 2015, we did even better,” said Melvin Tennant, Meet Minneapolis President and CEO. “Events Meet Minneapolis helped bring to the city had an estimated direct economic impact of $430 million, fueling the growth of our city and its hospitality industry.”

Meet Minneapolis exceeded its 2015 goals, booking a record number of future hotel room nights and generating a record amount of revenue at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The city also broke records for hotel occupancy and the number of hospitality jobs in town. Details on 2015 successes were released previously and are available on the Meet Minneapolis website: http://www.minneapolis.org/media/news-releases/minneapolis-achieves-another-record-year-in-hospitality/.

Minneapolis Hospitality Industry Awards

At its Annual Meeting, Meet Minneapolis announced its award recipients and thanked them for their outstanding efforts within the Minneapolis hospitality industry:

• The Innovation in Tourism Award went to CenterPoint Energy, for its role in opening Minneapolis Visitor Information on Nicollet, a Meet Minneapolis facility within the new CenterPoint Building.
• The Excellence in Meetings, Events & Conventions Award went to Railway Interchange, a combined event bringing together four rail-related groups, which will return to the Minneapolis Convention Center in 2019.
• The President’s Award was presented to Jeff Hamiel, CEO of the Metropolitan Airports Commission, for his leadership at MSP Airport over the past 30 years.
• The Lifetime Achievement Award went to Todd Klingel, President and CEO of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce for the past 13 years.

Meet Minneapolis also recognizes a hospitality industry professional in Minneapolis once per quarter as a Hospitality Hero. Previously honored for 2015 were Seng Sengpanya, sous chef at the Marquette Hotel; Brandon Peterson, sales and catering coordinator at W Minneapolis-The Foshay and Le Meridien Chambers; and Jim Kyndberg, executive chef at Radisson Blu Minneapolis Downtown. Meet Minneapolis announced the fourth quarter 2015 recipient at the annual meeting, recognizing Hell’s Kitchen server Roxanna Benson. In her nomination, Roxanna’s peers say she’s an incredible role model and that she pours her heart into every customer experience. She is the banquet captain and lead server for Hell’s Kitchen’s banquet department and has played an integral role in its rapid growth.

ABOUT MEET MINNEAPOLIS

Meet Minneapolis is a private, not-for-profit, member-based association. It actively promotes and sells the Minneapolis area as a destination for conventions and meetings, works to maximize the visitor experience and markets the city as a desirable tourist destination to maximize the economic benefit to the greater Minneapolis area.

Meet Minneapolis is accredited by the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program (DMAP) of the Destination Marketing Association International.

Find out more:

Online: www.minneapolis.org and http://go.minneapolis.org

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/meetminneapolis?ref=ts

On Twitter: http://twitter.com/meetminneapolis

On Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/meetminneapolis/

MEDIA CONTACT

Matt Laible, Meet Minneapolis Director of Public Relations & Communications 612.767.8220, mattl@minneapolis.org

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