Filling the Black Hotel & Conference Center Ownership Void: Tuskegee Has High Hopes; Clarke Atlanta Moves Slowly; Howard Throws in the Towel!
African Americans have struggled to gain a foothold in any industries, and the fact that they have failed to do so in the hotel and lodging business has been a sore point for many years. Blacks own anti manage few hotels -- a fact pointed out by the recent announcement of a boycott by the NAACP of several hotel chains.
The experience of three historically Black colleges and universities demonstrate the promise and perils of the business.
Tuskegee University
When Bernard Simmons attends the National Coalition of Black Meeting Planners' upcoming meeting in Mobile, Alabama, this April, he hopes to lure a busload of the group's members to historic Tuskegee, Alabama. Simmons who is director of sales and marketing at the Kellogg Executive Conference Center at Tuskegee University, believes the meeting planners would find the historic city and university a compelling location for African American organizations seeking to hold regional and board meetings.
The airfield, Moton Field, where the famed all-Black Tuskegee air fighter squadron trained during World War II and the George Washington Carver history museum on the university campus would likely generate interest among African American groups, according to Simmons. Tuskegee University was founded by Booker T. Washington, one of the most influential African American educators and leaders in American history.
"There's a lot of history in Tuskegee," Simmons says.
Like Simmons, Tuskegee University officials are also hoping the Kellogg Executive Conference Center, being one of the few conference center/lodging complexes owned by a historically Black college and university (HBCU), will have special appeal to African American meeting planners who represent groups with a predominantly Black membership base. School officials, who recently took over direct management of the three-year old facility, are venturing into an arena where few HBCUs have much experience.
