The Williamsburg Hotel and Motel Association has taken issue with an advertising cooperative between Virginia Beach hotels and Busch Gardens.
Busch Gardens and Water Country USA Park President Carl Lum serves as chairman of the Williamsburg Area Destination Marketing Committee, a group comprising a number of attraction and municipality representatives tasked with spending the $2 per night room tax toward marketing the Williamsburg area. Due to Lum’s position with WADMC, the WHMA is citing a conflict of interest and has asked WADMC to discuss the issue prior to and at its next meeting in September.
A package deal hit advertising shelves Sunday, offering Virginia Beach visitors the chance to stay in a Virginia Beach hotel and visit Busch Gardens with a “Kids Stay Free, Play Free” package. The deal falls under the name August Adventures, which started Thursday and ends Aug. 31. Under the deal, parents buy packages to stay for at least two nights at one of 10 participating hotels and purchase their Busch Gardens tickets through the package, while the kids’ tickets are free.
The deal starts at $743 for two adults and two kids to stay for two nights in one hotel room. At the Courtyard by Marriott Oceanfront South, the deal total comes to $764.12 for two nights. To book the hotel and buy Busch Gardens tickets separately, the cost would be roughly $818.
“This is clearly a direct conflict of interest with WADMC’s legislated requirement to promote the Historic Triangle as an overnight destination,” WHMA executive director Ron Kirkland wrote in an email to WADMC’s members.
Busch Gardens officials, however, say there’s no conflict.
“We have done various co-op efforts with Virginia Beach, for years really, and this year we are just working on this particular time period, targeting some of our key tourist markets,” said Dan Dipiazzo, vice president of marketing for Busch Gardens and Water Country USA.
Dipiazzo said it’s not the first time Busch Gardens and Virginia Beach have offered a deal, and the park works with a variety of hotels to offer tickets for a variety of prices. In the case of the August Adventures package, the Virginia Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau put together the package with the 10 hotels, and purchased the tickets from Busch Gardens directly. Also, Busch Gardens is not using any WADMC funds to promote this, Dipiazzo said.
Despite Busch Gardens officials saying business is operating as usual, the WHMA is not pleased.
“The Hotel Motel Association would hope that we’re able to work with our partners in the Historic Triangle to promote our local hotels for overnight stays. The whole purpose of our organization is to advocate for people coming, staying and visiting Williamsburg, not elsewhere,” Kirkland said in an interview with WYDaily.
Kirkland continued to say the WHMA has tried to work with local attractions for years to promote the destination with varying degrees of effectiveness.
“… For our local hotels to be specifically excluded from this opportunity is disheartening, particularly when you consider each person that takes advantage of that offer is going to go stay somewhere else and they’re going to go home and tell someone else how much fun they had in Virginia Beach and not Williamsburg and that cannot help this destination,” Kirkland said.
Busch Gardens officials have a different way of thinking: If visitors are coming to stay in Richmond and Virginia Beach, why not bring them to Williamsburg, even if it is for a day?
“They’re spending money, they’re generating sales and meals tax … you just have to be realistic about making good business decisions,” Lum said. “… I’m very proud of what we’ve been doing to help drive visitation to the area. You’ve got to get people here … and you have to be flexible and smart and not rely on one way to get them here.”
