Will hotels recall Volvo fondly?

The Volvo Ocean Race stopover in Newport has drawn thousands of overnight visitors to the Ocean State. While good news for local hotels in the short term, just how much of an impact the 13-day event will have on occupancy rates for the year is hard to gauge, tourism specialists say.

Overnight stays in hotels in Providence and Newport associated with the Volvo stopover, which began May 5 and ends May 17, exceeded 8,000 in April for corporate sponsors for the boats in the global ocean race, said Laurie Z. Stroll, president and owner of Newport Hospitality. Her agency is in charge of most corporate bookings.

That figure does not account for bookings that did not go through Newport Hospitality, or that came in in May, said Stroll.

Visitors may also want something other than brand-name hotels – and are expected to descend on inns, bed and breakfast establishments, time shares and home rentals, said Evan Smith, president and CEO of Discover Newport.

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“We’re working very hard to connect [people] to the diversity we enjoy here in lodging [across the state],” Smith said.

The Hotel Viking in Newport and the Omni Providence Hotel in Providence saw increased overnight bookings a couple of weeks earlier than usual this season, according to spokesmen.

As of May 5, the Omni, which has 564 rooms total, booked 611 room nights spanning May 13-17, said Terrence L. Strong, the director of sales.

“This has been a hit or miss week going back a few years, so it’s nice to have something more concrete,” he said.

Whether the Volvo will help boost hotel occupancy rates for 2015 remains an open question, but Smith said that last fall’s forecast from a regional tourism expert at a Rhode Island Hospitality Association breakfast is not a fair way to measure that impact.

Rachel J. Roginsky, principal of the Pinnacle Advisory Group, a Boston-based hospitality-consulting firm, had said that the entire state’s projected increase in hotel occupancy for 2015 would not exceed 1 percent, even with the Volvo’s impact. She noted that May is a normally busy time for hotels in the tourist season anyway.

But Smith argued that, “On an annual basis for one event to move the index more than a percent or two is unheard of. The only fair way to assess the Volvo is to look at this month and last May and say: How did we do?”

For May 2014, Newport’s occupancy rate was 66.7 percent with overnight stays averaging $198 a night.

Dale J. Venturini, president and CEO of the Hospitality Association, said the Volvo stopover’s economic impact will go well beyond hotels and restaurants. “There is a huge trickle-down effect to vendors, including rental services like linens, tents, transportation and photographers, florists, etc.,” she said.

Brad Read, executive director of Sail Newport, said a full impact study for the Volvo will be done later this year and will include hotel activity. •

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