Gaylord Entertainment Co., proposing a massive hotel complex in Aurora, will piggyback off the brand Denver has created to attract convention and meeting business, Denver’s top tourism official says.

“Truly they are going to draft off the brand of Denver,” said Richard Scharf, president of Visit Denver and chairman of the Colorado Tourism Office board. “They are going to take advantage of the millions of dollars we have spent marketing Denver as a premier convention destination. They sell just like we do.”

While officials from Nashville, Tenn.-based Gaylord Entertainment say the new complex will cater to a different clientele than the Colorado Convention Center and will bring new business to the state, downtown leaders are concerned that a Gaylord property in Aurora will lure some conferences and meetings away from the convention center and downtown hotels and businesses.

The convention center already has lost one multimillion-dollar piece of business to Gaylord’s Washington, D.C., property for 2014, and several companies have said they’re going to reconsider committing to Denver until they know more about Gaylord’s Aurora deal, Scharf said.

Gaylord announced Tuesday it plans to build an $824 million hotel and entertainment complex that will include about 1,500 hotel rooms and more than 400,000 square feet of conference space on 85 acres in Aurora. The city agreed to offer a $300 million incentive package to the company.

By comparison, the Colorado Convention Center has 811,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 584,000-square-foot exhibit hall. It is surrounded by numerous restaurants, shops and 8,000 hotel rooms.

“I don’t want to compete with something that’s heavily subsidized,” Scharf said. “Denver is very fragile right now. We are a very remote city. We’ve only been in the convention business for 20 years. We’re not Boston yet. We’re not Chicago yet. We’re not San Francisco yet. They’ve been in the business for 100 years.”

Gaylord designs its properties so customers never have to leave, much like the mega-hotels Las Vegas boasts.

About 80 percent of Gaylord’s $1 billion in annual revenue is generated from hosting group meetings that range in size from 600 to 2,000 people who can eat, drink, shop and sleep without ever leaving the complex. The remainder of the company’s business comes from leisure travelers, who pick up the slack during slow times of the year such as between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“We use the term ‘under one roof,’ ” said Kim Earle, director of global accounts for ConferenceDirect, a Los Angeles-based meeting-solutions company that books events at venues worldwide. “With Gaylord, you get that.”

It’s a concept that’s so popular among companies and associations holding large meetings and conferences that many rotate their events through Gaylord’s four properties in Florida; Texas; the Washington, D.C., area; and Nashville, where it also owns the Grand Ole Opry.

Kidney-dialysis giant DaVita, newly landed in Denver, has selected Gaylord properties numerous times for various events, ranging from 300 to 2,500 people over three or four days.

“Every property they have has really strong convention space for the size of hotels they are,” said Steve Priest, the company’s chief wisdom officer who is responsible for meeting planning.

“We can do everything on site,” he said. “From that standpoint, it’s very positive. They’re very nice hotels, but they’re not extravagant. They’re not ridiculously priced. They’re not over the top in terms of finish, but they’re high-quality hotels.”

Margaret Jackson: 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com

Gaylord Complex

400,000: Conference space, in square feet

1,500: Hotel rooms

85: Total project, in acres

Convention Center

811,000: Meeting space, in square feet

584,000: Exhibit hall, in square feet

8,000: Nearby hotel rooms