Hotels provide us with the dates and the best rates for convention business.

A new sticking point was how many rooms the hotel would have to set aside each night for convention business.

"But the convention business was good, and the casinos had a much better September 2005 than 2004."

"New England is under the market when it comes to convention business."

The convention business is weak all over the country.

In Atlanta, the convention business was off 37 percent, he said.

And tourism, along with the convention business, is still lagging.

The convention business, of course, is about much more than exhibition space.

Built as part of a municipal effort to improve convention business, the hotel received city and Federal government assistance.

Between 1965 and 1969, convention business in Atlanta doubled, with 400,000 delegates spending $60 million.