Though tourists are spending more money across the Historic Triangle, it has not translated to an increase in hotel bookings for the City of Williamsburg.
Greater Williamsburg Chamber & Tourism Alliance President and CEO Karen Riordan presented tourism “scorecards” as part of a quarterly report she said she hoped would foster communication, transparency and an understanding of the Alliance’s goals.
The scorecards, shown to Williamsburg’s City Council at Monday’s work session, listed various measurements of the region’s tourism economy based on figures provided by the localities.
Riordan indicated total tourism expenditures for the region increased for 2013 through August 2014. Room sales and room sales taxes also increased, each growing by 1.2 percent across the region.
But the story was different for the City of Williamsburg, with the city’s occupied room rate dipping 8 percent — the biggest slide in the Historic Triangle — while its room sales rate dropped by 6.7 percent, based on numbers from Smith Travel Research, which collects data from about 73 percent of the hotels in the Historic Triangle.
“This is the number that’s pulling down the overall regional number,” Riordan said.
While the other localities have added hotels in the last year, Riordan said the city had actually seen a decrease in its hotel in recent years with the sale of the Hospitality House to the College of William & Mary and its conversion into a dormitory.
“It hurt some of the data points for 2013, but you’re seeing the full effect of that now in this 2014 report,” Riordan said.
Regionally, the number of occupied hotel, timeshare and bed and breakfast rooms was down nearly 3 percent from last year, and room night demand growth decreased by 2.5 percent.
The average rate of stay, which Riordan described as a major data point for determining the state of the tourism economy, was also down for the region, from 3.7 days to 3.2 days. Riordan said the Alliance’s goal was to push that figure to 4.0 days.
Although total occupied room rates were down from last year, Riordan said the region’s timeshares had shown an increase in vitality. At 43 percent of the region’s available lodging, Riordan said the region’s timeshares outnumbered the percentages in several of the region’s peer destinations, including Savannah, Charleston and Ashland.
“Even a gold standard like Orlando, Fla., which has many, many timeshares still does not have 43 percent of their lodging stock in timeshares,” she said.
Riordan also noted several planned timeshare developments, including Patrick Henry Square, Colonial Crossings and Kings Creek, would increase the availability of timeshare units in the region.
Riordan said the Alliance was focusing on several initiatives — particularly around the winter time — to boost the city’s lagging tourism figures.
“What’s in development right now is Christmas, Christmas, Christmas and more Christmas in Williamsburg,” she said.
Riordan said the winter months were traditionally difficult for tourism in the region, but the Alliance was intent on growing awareness of Williamsburg as a family destination. In particular, Riordan said events like the Christmas parade, Grand Illumination, Christmas Town and the holiday wreaths in Colonial Williamsburg had the potential to attract families for winter trips.
“We really want to see what kind of drivers we can create this season and beyond for Christmas,” she said.
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