P.E.I. 2014 sparks 1000s of hotel bookings

More than 30,000 hotel room nights in the Charlottetown area are booked up, but the guests aren't arriving for another two years, says Prince Edward Island's tourism minister.

The reservations are in anticipation of P.E.I. 2014, a celebration of the Charlottetown Conference, the meeting in September 1864 between the Fathers of Confederation.

"This is a great marketing opportunity for Prince Edward Island," said Tourism Minister Rob Henderson, calling the interest in P.E.I. for this event unprecedented.

"Just to put that in a bit of perspective, that would be about triple the amount of bookings that you would have two years out from an event," he said.

Henderson said the biggest reason for the surge in hotel room bookings is because of all the meetings and conventions planned for Charlottetown in that year.

The bookings include a meeting of the provincial premiers, as well as the tourism ministers. Henderson is hoping other organizations jump on board.

"This is a big year, we're going to have a lot of different types of events," said Henderson.

Henderson is still waiting to see what kind of financial support he can get from Ottawa and the city. So far, neither level of government has committed any funding for the province to help the celebrations. The province has set aside $2 million for the planning of the event.