Smith said that Omni’s position doesn’t alone win Omni a convention or event, but it does open the door for her to speak to the meeting planner and possibly to the ultimate decision makers. “It gets my foot in the door where it might not have. This is big business,” she said

Now that Marriott is starting to phase out porn in its new hotels, Hotel Check-In checked in with Omni Hotels to see what being porn-free has meant to the Dallas-based luxury hotel chain.

Omni’s ownership, led by Texas billionaire Robert Rowling, in 1999 decided to eliminate all adult entertainment offerings from Omni’s in-room TV systems back in the days when adult entertainment was still a bigger money maker.

It was a moral decision, said Omni spokesperson Caryn Kboudi. It had nothing to do with changing in-room-entertainment platforms or declining movie-rental sales related to an uptick in the number of travelers who carry their own entertainment – the primary factors that drove Marriott’s decision.

Yet, within six months of Omni taking a porn-free position, the chain stumbled upon a new, lucrative business – religious meetings such as evangelist Billy Graham’s annual convention.

Tamie Smith, the global sales director for Omni who handles the chain’s religious business, told me that she landed her job directly as a result of Omni’s decision.
“We were an organization that had never tapped into the religious market,” she said. “My position was created when the ownership made the announcement.”