December 16, 2008
ROSWELL – LG Electronics' opening of its commercial air conditioning academy on Old Roswell Road in Roswell will have a bigger economic effect than just the 30 employees working in the building. With 600 people expected to train at the center, North Fulton will have approximately 1,200 room nights for its hotels.
Janet Rodgers, president and CEO of Alpharetta Convention and Visitors Bureau, said she estimates approximately $259,000 will flow into local businesses for rooms, transportation and food while those students are attending the academy.
She said her staff uses a lower figure to make that estimate than the Destination Marketing Association International trade group.
"We use $216 to calculate that per night," Rodgers said. "That's 26 percent lower than what DMA uses because I want to be more realistic."
The trainees will average two nights per person, according to information supplied by LG Electronics. They probably will eat breakfast and dinner on their own, but lunches will be catered in the LG Electronics facility.
One thing not calculated in the $216 figure is shopping.
"The number one thing a visitor does when he comes into a destination is shop," Rodgers said. "I don't know how much they'll spend in the malls, or retail stores, but there will be some kind of number."
Rodgers and the ACVB's vice president of sales, Beth Brown, met with Brian Bogdan, applications manager for LG Electronics, the day after the academy's official opening.
After their meeting, Bogdan said the estimate LG Electronics has of 600 trainees does not include LG people who are going to come in.
"We are going to have my team members, team members who work with us in from Korea," he said.
The mobile telephone and digital appliance offices for LG Electronics on the second floor of the building will have their own people to add to the guest list.
"Six hundred is a very conservative number," he said.
And that's not all.
"We'll be bringing more jobs to the location as well," Bogdan said.
Rodgers and Brown showed Bogdan how the ACVB could be the company's one-stop shopper to obtain corporate rates from any of Alpharetta's 23 hotels.
Rodgers said the ACVB will put together maps and information showing where local hotels are located. The maps will include directions on how to get between the hotels, local restaurants and shopping.
"To me, it's just going to be great for our hospitality industry. It's a continuous piece of business that keeps on going," she said.
Local hotels don't have a lot of business projected beyond a single year. Training businesses fall into that category, giving hoteliers something on which they can count. Without any conference or convention centers in the immediate area, Rodgers said the city would like to have even more training business.
Bogdan said the ACVB offered fantastic help.
"I've stayed in different places around the country, around the world. You pay all these taxes on the room, you wonder why," he said. "It's kind of nice to see here it actually goes to someplace useful and helpful for those taxes."
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