Major summer events drive bookings ahead
While recent forecasts have said that Rhode Island’s hotel supply is growing faster than the demand for it, hoteliers and tourism officials are projecting a steady amount of travelers this summer, led by international visitors, key events and convention and meetings traffic.
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David DePetrillo, the state’s tourism director, said last week that while it is too early to say certainly how many travelers the state will host this summer, reports have shown that international and domestic bookings are both strong.
Newport Convention and Visitor’s Bureau President Evan Smith said that about 10 percent of all travelers to Newport are coming from outside the country. The figure represents a rebound of sorts, Smith said.
“After 9/11, there was a decline in international travel,” he said. “But now, because of the weak dollar, there are more international travelers coming back.”
Newport is hosting several events this summer that should help draw people into the seaside city, including the U.S. Women’s Open at Newport Country Club and the 2006 Newport to Bermuda Race, as well as folk, jazz, rock and classical music festivals.
In fact, traffic from these events is slated to be so strong that communities outside of Aquidneck Island are hoping that the events draw people to their facilities.
J. Rudi Heater, former chairman of the R.I. Hospitality and Tourism Association board and general manager of the Crowne Plaza Hotel at the Crossings in Warwick, said that Warwick may be able to draw in what is called “compression.”
“If people absolutely cannot find a room at any price, much less the $400-plus prices they’re quoting now for the major hotels in Newport, then they’re going to come here and stay in Warwick and just make the 30-minute travel trip to Newport during the day,” Heater said.
In particular, the U.S. Women’s Open should have statewide impact, said Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau spokeswoman Kristen Adamo.
“Even though it is in Newport,” she said, “it’s such a huge event that we predict we’re going to get some overflow business.”
The bureau is promoting travel packages around events in Providence, such as WaterFire and The Providence Black Repertory Company’s Sound Session 2006 in July.
More important, both Adamo and Heater said, convention and meeting traffic is projected to be strong this summer. At this time last year, Adamo said, the bureau counted 8,742 rooms booked related to conventions in June. This year, the number is 12,280. Key conventions such as one for the Health Physics Society are driving that number, she said.
Heater, who said conventions are the “bread and butter” of the Crowne Plaza, said pre-season bookings at the hotel are among the highest he’s seen in his 10 years at the hotel.
Other variables related to travel are still playing themselves out, however.
While the industry is waiting to see the effects of high gasoline prices, now exceeding $3 per gallon, DePetrillo said that in the past, high prices haven’t really hurt Rhode Island, in part because Rhode Island is close to many large markets in the Eastern United States.
“I don’t know if you want to say we will benefit from high gas prices, because nobody benefits from them,” DePetrillo said. “But the bottom line is that people will take the vacations and they will look at where they are going to take them.”
Heater said that he expects the travel expenses to have little impact on leisure travel.
“We just don’t know how that is going to affect the discretionary leisure traveler who is traveling on his or her own budget and not their company’s budget,” Heater said. “It’s an unknown at this point, but it’s obviously worth looking at when it takes over $50 to fill up a tank of gas.”
Smith said that much of Newport’s market is dependent on the weather. While last year’s virtually dry summer was great for the city’s beaches, indoor businesses such as retail stores are hurt by people’s desire to be outside. The ideal mix, he said, is “half sun and half rain.”
“Weather is the most controlling variable in tourism when you’re talking about a regional resort like Newport, Rhode Island,” Smith said. “People can alter their travel plans based on a weather forecast, and that is something that concerns us.”
