By Tim Whitmire
The Associated Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The Christian Church and this city were a match made in conventioneering heaven.

The church's biennial General Assembly, which ended Tuesday, brought an estimated 7,000 people to fill tables at the city's restaurants and beds at its hotels.

And conventioneers found they got to spend five gorgeous fall days in a clean, affordable city in the heart of the Bible Belt.

"I've enjoyed the city. People have been very nice. It's very hospitable," the Rev. David James, pastor at First Christian Church in San Lorenzo, Calif., said as he got ready to head home from the five-day meeting.

It's a package that's made Charlotte a denominational destination. The Christian Church was the fourth major religious group to meet here in 2003.

The Progressive National Baptist Convention came in August. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship met in June. And the Presbyterian Church in America was here in the spring.

Collectively, the meetings attracted an estimated 22,500 visitors to downtown Charlotte and direct spending of $10 million.

Arriving later this week are an expected 4,000 people for a Youth Specialties conference of Christian youth workers. And in late December, a Wesleyan Church youth conference is expected to bring 10,000 people to town.

With business travel and convention spending still severely depressed as a result of the long recession and terrorism concerns, religious conventions have become crucial to the tourism bottom line of "second-tier" destination cities such as Charlotte, Nashville, St. Louis, Indianapolis and Cincinnati.

Attendees - who often pay for their own travel and use their vacation time to visit - may spend less than business conventioneers. But meeting sizes don't shrink due to a bad business climate.