Event Hotels In South Virginia|"National Lodging Research Data Shows Muskegon County Hotels"

Source              :  mlive.com
Category        :  Event Hotels In South Virginia
By                  :   Dave Alexander
Posted By     :  Hotels in Virginia Beach South Courtyard

Event Hotels In South Virginia

As the tourism economy recovers from recession and the local hotels improve their product, Muskegon County lodgings are showing surprising strength vs. competitor travel markets. The Muskegon County Convention & Visitors Bureau has contracted with Smith Travel Research Inc. to provide its STR Global “destination reports” on the health of various lodging markets -- for the first time giving the county comparative data used by the hotel industry. Muskegon County is being compared to nine markets along with the entire state of Michigan and selected communities in the Midwest. According to the STR destination reports, Muskegon County is looking favorable, said Bob Lukens, Muskegon County community development director.

Of the nine comparison markets, Muskegon was second in terms of average daily room rate for July, above the average of both Michigan and the Midwest. Only Traverse City out-paced Muskegon, which had higher room rates than Grand Rapids, Lansing, Holland, Kalamazoo, Milwaukee, Wis., and a group of Lake Michigan shoreline communities not including Muskegon. In terms of occupancy percentage, Muskegon County was fifth among the other nine comparison communities and registering higher occupancy than the Michigan and Midwest averages, beating Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Lansing among others in July. “Generally we are seeing business pick up,” said Doug Pollock, the new general manager of the Parkland Development-owned Holiday Inn Muskegon Harbor. Pollock had been Parkland’s general manager at the nearby Shoreline Inn and Conference Center. Hotel owner Jon Rooks now owns and operates both downtown Muskegon businesses.“It has been in both the business and leisure markets this summer.” 

Improving room rates is not a primary goal of local hotels, Pollock said but the local properties’ ability to charge higher rates is a sign of an improving economy and a more robust Muskegon County tourism market.

“Muskegon as a whole was hit pretty hard in the downturn of 2008,” Pollock said of the general economy. “These numbers are encouraging signs that we are seeing a recovery. The Muskegon market is showing well against its peers.” Driving the solid Muskegon County lodging performance in this summer’s Smith Travel Research reports is an aggressive program of reinvestment in local hotels, said Lisa Grossenbacher, president of the Muskegon County Lodging Association and general manager of Fairfield Inn in Norton Shores. The Shoreline Inn is improving its lobby area with a new lounge and continues to upgrade its rooms, while the Holiday Inn is going through major repairs and upgrades with its new owner, Pollock said. The Fairfield Inn and the Hampton Inn – under the same ownership – have been putting at least $1 million of upgrades into their facilities, Grossenbacher said. “The demand for rooms in the Muskegon area is so great in the summer that there are usually not enough rooms,” Grossenbacher said of having to send potential guests to out-of-town hotels. “We just have a better product to offer than we had three or four years ago. The owners are investing in the properties.” Muskegon County lodging occupancies for July sat at 75.6 percent, which is up from 73.8 percent from July 2012, according to the Smith Travel Research reports. The Lakeshore communities – minus Muskegon – had an 80.3 percent occupancy in June, Michigan 71.2 percent and the Midwest 70.9 percent.

Source : mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2013/09/national_lodging_research_data.html