Introduction to the Southern Baptist Convention

Late Wednesday morning was slow outside the downtown Omni Hotel, and Marvin Fernandez, an affable young member of the downtown property’s valet crew, stood perched outside the lobby chatting with his coworkers, waiting to park cars that weren’t coming.

His eyes lit up when a Dallas Morning News reporter mentioned the upcoming Southern Baptist Convention, an event that will draw thousands of visitors to the adjacent Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center — and likely a crush of waiting cars to the Omni’s valet team.

“Tips? That would be great,” he said. “If they don’t — whatever the tips, we’ll still make a decent amount. We still get the hours, we still get some tips and we stay busy. The day goes by fast.”

Economic Impact of the Convention

The four-day convention, which officially kicks off Sunday, is expected to provide North Texas with a sizable economic boost. With as many as 20,000 convention attendees descending on urban Dallas, direct spending from the event is expected to come out to $12.8 million, according to an estimate provided from Visit Dallas, which contracts a third party to produce economic impact figures.

The tourism nonprofit also estimates the event will generate an additional $7.5 million in indirect spending and more than $600,000 in local tax revenue. The Visit Dallas estimates were based on an estimated attendance of 15,000, while other organizations have put the attendance estimate somewhat higher.

Importance of the Convention for Downtown Businesses

For downtown-area businesses, the event is also particularly welcome because it comes a couple months after the city’s busiest conference season has ended and as the Kay Bailey prepares for an upcoming $3.7 billion renovation.

“Yeah, we need it,” Lee Clayton, a Dallas-area director of sales marketing at Aimbridge Hospitality, told The Dallas Morning News. Aimbridge manages several local hotels, including the downtown AC Hotel. “Just this one event — as far as revenues go, this one event is holding up the month.”

Largest Annual Religious Gathering

The conference is the largest annual religious gathering in the United States, drawing from a population of some 13 million American Southern Baptists.

After recent stops in Indianapolis, New Orleans and Anaheim, it’s returning to Dallas for the first time since 2018, and comes as the city’s urban core is experiencing something of its own transformation: Late last year, as D-FW was topping national construction lists, Downtown Dallas — a neighborhood that for decades has struggled with blight and disinvestment ‒ counted more than 10,000 existing and under construction apartments, twice as many as a decade earlier.

A new public-private safety campaign has also brought dozens more police officers to downtown streets as the city works to address crime and other quality of life issues, and even more officers are expected on the streets during the convention itself.

Safety Measures in Place

“We’re very honest about this: This is a big city, so we’re going to see slices of different life here,” said Craig Davis, CEO of Visit Dallas. But the tourism group also coordinates closely with the Dallas Police Department and Downtown Dallas Inc., the downtown business advocacy group, he said, and he was confident the conference attendees will be safe as they happily meander through Dallas eating and shopping.

“Now, incidents have happened, but they’re rare,” he said. “We don’t want to discount that. We take them very seriously. But we feel very proud of the way that the city works together to ensure the safety both of our residents and for our visitors.”

People pray for America at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Dallas Convention Center in Dallas on Tuesday, June 12, 2018. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)(Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer)

Downtown Hotels

Area hotels are likely to receive the largest share of the visiting Southern Baptists’ money. In 2023, the most recent year for which data was available, lodging accounted for 28% of all Dallas visitors’ spending, or about $1.8 billion, according to Visit Dallas. The tourism group, citing a figure from a third-party economic assessment, estimates the Baptists will drop about $4.3 million for their stay in Dallas.

Most of that will be concentrated downtown: Besides the 23-story, 1,001-key Omni, the convention center’s official hotel — the property is owned by the city and connects to the Kay Bailey Center via a skybridge — the Southern Baptists provided attendees with a list of rates for 31 other mostly downtown-area hotels, ranging from the $169 a night Magnolia, on Commerce Street, to the $279 Hilton Anatole, on North Stemmons Freeway.

Hotel Bookings and Occupancy

A few days before the event was set to kick off, not all of the listed properties had been completely booked. A manager at the Statler, the iconic Commerce Street hotel that reopened in 2017 after a $230 million renovation, which didn’t have a room block for the convention, pulled up his reservation system but couldn’t point to any Baptist bump.

Yet others were preparing for a holy deluge. At the Aloft, a three-star property on Young Street a few blocks from the convention center, about 85% of the hotel’s 196 rooms were booked by the church group. “They’re really great,” said Skylar Rivera, a sales coordinator. “They’ve brought in some great business.”

Baptists’ Spending Across Dallas

The majority of the Baptists’ spending is expected to stay downtown. But the money will also spread around, Davis, the Visit Dallas CEO, said, to places like the upscale shops at NorthPark Center and Highland Park Village. Area museums and attractions, like Reunion Tower and the Dallas World Aquarium, could also benefit, as well as Uber drivers, bellhops and restaurant servers who live everywhere from Irving to Addison.

Although not every type of business will benefit, of course. “It’s not a party crowd,” Khan said — while the restaurateur’s West End bars are stocked, he wasn’t expecting many alcohol sales. “Nobody’s going to be drinking at the bar. Maybe a glass of wine, and that’s a big maybe.”

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Southern Baptist Convention is expected to have a significant economic impact on the city of Dallas, with thousands of visitors descending upon the city and millions of dollars being spent on lodging, food, and other activities. The convention is a welcome boost to downtown businesses, particularly after a slow period,