Convention center honored with award

A national publication recently recognized the Hot Springs Convention Center with its annual Readers’ Choice Award.

ConventionSouth, a national multimedia resource for planning events in the South, gave the convention center the award for the year 2017. It is among 300 convention and visitor bureaus, hotels and meeting facilities throughout the region to receive the award.

Visit Hot Springs, the city’s convention and visitors bureau, said in a news release that the meeting sites, which meeting professionals “believe provide exemplary service for group events,” are nominated throughout the year. The sites are then voted upon by meeting professionals and fans on an online ballot. ConventionSouth Publisher J. Talty O’Connor said over 6,000 voters participated in this year’s selection process.

“It comes from the United States’ top meeting professionals who hold events in the South,” O’Connor said. “These planners demand the highest level of customer service and quality facilities, and they have contributed in determining that Hot Springs’ Convention Center indeed displays the commitment to professionalism, creativity and service that they require.”

O’Connor noted 2017 marks the fourth time since 2001 the convention center has received the award, which makes it “an even greater honor” to present.

Tammy Clampet, sales director for Visit Hot Springs, called the award “a testament to our staff’s hard work and dedication to providing the highest level of customer service.”

“The staff of our convention center, from the technical-support personnel to our event coordinators to our maintenance crews, work every day to ensure that the groups that use the

Convention Center and Bank of the Ozarks Arena enjoy the best facilities and services that they’ll find anywhere,” Gordon Mahoney, chief operating officer for Visit Hot Springs, said. “We are pleased that ConventionSouth’s readers have honored us with this recognition.”