Tourism's changing face; more domestic visitors and high-end hotels have helped Miami Beach tourism come roaring back since 9/11. The current hot buttons: will families come in the summer, and will the convention center be expanded?

South Florida CEO, April, 2004 by Rochelle Broder-Singer

The 900-plus-room Fontainebleau is adding to its inventory with an under-construction 36-story condo-hotel tower and a second, 18-story condo-hotel. When the new construction is complete. Miami Beach's largest hotel will have some 1,700 rooms on its 18-acre site, many of them offering a higher-end product than the hotel's current rooms.

"The five-star or luxury hotels have brought another level of visitor," says the hospitality association's Blumberg. Among them is the 376-room Ritz-Carlton South Beach, which opened earlier this year and is already experiencing sold-out weekends. The beach-front property's guests so far have been split between leisure travelers and those staying for group business, able to conduct corporate meetings in its 17,000 square feet of meeting space. Like the Royal Palm and the Park Plaza, it takes advantage of its historic heritage, incorporating the original Di Lido hotel's terrazzo floors, hand railings and other architectural elements. Add to that packages that include a Vespa scooter, and "when you speak to guests who have been in many Ritz Carlton hotels, they clearly tell us we are one of a kind," says general manager Franz Firschke.

Besides broadening Miami Beach's tourism appeal, the other key concern is whether the Miami Beach Convention Center will be expanded. City officials say there is already growing demand from groups that are too large for the current facility. To pay for expansion. Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami Beach recently ended a dispute over convention development funds, with the county agreeing to hand over $15 million in taxes for the convention center. The county will put another $55 million in funding on the November ballot, as part of a billion-dollar bond initiative. "The chicness and the film industry fickleness will come and go, but the convention center will always be the heart of business travel," says Bruce Singer, president and CEO of the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce.