Providence Tourism Outperforming Region—and Nation

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Kate Nagle, GoLocal News Editor

 

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Downtown Providence

Hotel occupancy numbers in Providence are outpacing the region -- and nation -- as the state's capital city was just named one of the top places in the world to visit this year by the New York Times. 

Martha Sheridan with the Providence-Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau spoke with GoLocal about the uptick in numbers -- and what that means for Providence. 

"The most recent numbers for January through November, our hotel occupancy in downtown was 72.9% -- a year ago it was 70.7%, a 3% growth. The other good news is that hotel room rates are climbing -- average daily rate is $159.15 and a year ago it was $147.  That's an 8% increase."

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"What hotels look at is revenue per available room -- 'rev par' - and year-to-date growth for that in Providence has been 11.5%. We're at 116 rev par," said Sheridan. "Through the same time, the U.S. rev par was up 6.7%,  and regionally it was 7.7%.  So Rhode Island is trending well above average."

"There are several reasons," said Sheridan when asked about the numbers. "We had a stronger year for meetings and conventions in 2015 than 2014.  And we're seeing growth on the leisure side.  Occupancy on Saturday nights in Providence is typically in the nineties (percentage occupancy) -- colleges, Waterfires, that says people are coming here for reasons other than business. People are coming just to the experience the city. We'd love to take all the credit, but the fact is the economy is improving, and people are traveling more."

New Visitors, New Hotels

Sheridan was in Vancouver earlier this week for what she called a "conventions-convention".  

"All of our big clients go," said Sheridan.  "It's tough to get people to come here by sitting here.  Kristen [Adamo] was just in New York talking with all the big media outlets -- Conde Nast, Travel and Leisure. "

"As far as new hotels, we don't take a position as to whether we need them -- we let the market decide that.  When a developer looks at a city, they usually do consult us about future projections, but they have tons of data they work with," said Sheridan. "If they need financing, it's more than tourism telling them we think we need more rooms. But when they see the growth in rev par, they might say that the city could need more rooms."

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"When we're running in the high nineties (room occupancy) on a Saturday night, we have to ask though, how much business are we turning away?  Developers look for new business. No one wants to build a hotel and shift guests around.  They want to generate more overall visitation," added Sheridan.

Sheridan spoke to the two new proposals pending before the city.

"There's the Procaccianti Group's hotel across from the Convention Center, which is slated to be a Marriott Resident Inn.  It's going to be an extended-stay, to attract long term business visitors, repeat visitors, but that won't fill the hotel seven days a week.  Then there's property across from the Citizens' Building -- that's the same owner as the Hampton Inn on Weybosset.  That's for an extended day also."

Providence is a mainstay on national "best of" lists, most notably the coveted spot on the New York Times 52 places to visit this year -- in the world.  There were ten locations in the U.S. chosen for the honor.

"Those types of accolades are honestly the best 'advertisement' we can get - they're third party, unendorsed, and in the case of the New York times, they're so credible, they're well known in the travel world they don't take perks for their travel writers, so we know they relied on good feedback," said Sheridan. "From our perspective those really do matter.  It was a ranking for tops in the world -- what it allows us to do it allows us to do is put it in our marketing materials so when we meet with potential clients and people pause and check it out." 

Sheridan noted on aspect of the current year that is working to Providence's advantage so far -- Mother Nature. 
"Let's keep the weather the way it is," said Sheridan. "Seriously, great things are happening, and the Governor's working with us to develop a new brand -- we hope to only improve on our success."

Impact Locally

Rick Simone with the Federal Hill Commerce Association said that the impact from the upward trend at the city's hotels has been pronounced for area businesses. 

"I can tell you from Federal Hill that those year to date numbers are way up," said Simone.  "And every time the occupancy are up -- when it gets to 70% -- we see that influx.  There were a dozen conferences that happened in the last quarter alone, and that's when Federal Hill gets an influx -- the CVB does a good job pushing them out into the city.  From our perspective, the more hotels the better."

"I think the bigger thing that's overlooked - that is the additional economic impact of employing more people," said Simone. "The new hotels employ more people, puts more money in our employees’ pockets -- more hours, better tips, from our perspective.  All of the restaurants up on the Hill — which is typically quiet in the summer - those employees were working more last year, and were better off for it."

 

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Any takers? We would love to have you.

 

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