Inside the Industry

Hotels may benefit from online travel agents

Hotels listed on online travel sites such as Travelocity and Expedia may see an increase in average daily reservations made through traditional avenues, according to a new study from Cornell University.

In what is referred to as “the billboard effect,” hotels received a boost in reservations made directly through the hotels that ranged from 7.5 to 26 percent when they were included on these sites, according to the study from the school's Center for Hospitality Research.

The theory is that the potential guest gains information about the hotel from an online travel agent listing, but then books the room through a channel controlled by the hotel.

For three months, the study cycled several hotel properties on and off of Expedia.com for seven to 11 days each cycle. When the hotels were taken off Expedia.com, potential guests could not find them anywhere else on the Web site, even if one searched specifically for one of the hotels, the researchers said.

At the end of the study, the company recorded all the reservations on each hotel's own reservation system and saw the increase.

Local hoteliers say they have few doubts this is the case for their properties as well, but they've been using these third-party sites for so many years that it's hard to see the direct effects on their traditional daily reservations.

“I think now, at least this season and last season, it's more because of comparative reason that they're hitting both the OTA [online travel agent] and the brand Web site,” said Patrick Norton, director of marketing for Brittain Resort management company, which is made up of 15 hotels along the Grand Strand.

Read Tourism Talk in the Money section of Sunday's edition of The Sun News for more on this story.

MyrtleBeachHotels.com holding contest that will send people to resorts for $5 a night

MyrtleBeachHotels.com, a group of 14 oceanfront resorts located along the Grand Strand, will be sending five Facebook fans every Friday for a few weeks to one of their resorts for $5 per night.

The management company is offering the $5 Fridays promotion, which kicked off last week and will end Nov. 20, said Lyn Mettler, a spokeswoman for the group.

As part of the promotion, the company will post the note "It’s $5 Friday Time!" to the wall on the Facebook pages of one of its resorts sometime each Friday.

Participants will not know ahead of time when the note will be posted, but the first five people who comment on the post and who are fans of that page will win two nights at the Caribbean Resort & Villas (Jamaican building) or the Breakers Resort for $5 per night, Mettler said.

The rates are good through the end of 2009, but exclude Thanksgiving and Christmas.

"Our Twitter Beach Bash was such a success earlier this year that we wanted to reach out to our fans and followers with another fun contest this time to promote visiting Myrtle Beachat the holidays," said Patrick Norton, director of marketing for MyrtleBeachHotels.com. "There are so many holiday attractions and shows, plus you get to enjoy our mild weather. We hope people embrace the idea and have fun looking for the post and trying to be the first to comment each Friday."

The Facebook pages that will be part of the promotion include those for Caribbean Resort & Villas, Breakers Resort, Long Bay Resort, Dunes Village Resort, Ocean Reef Resort, Bay View Resort, Compass Cove Resort and Paradise Resort.

To participate, simply watch the Facebook pages of these resorts Nov. 13 and Nov. 20 looking for the “It’s $5 Friday Time!” post and be among the first five people to post a comment in response. Participants must also be a fan of the page in order to win.

A third of travelers leery of swine flu; local officials say not to worry

Some Americans say they will factor in the swine flu when making travel decisions, but local and state officials say the Myrtle Beach area has nothing to fret about.

Of those who intend to take a leisure trip during the next six months, more than one third would be “very or extremely likely” to alter their travel plans if their intended destination has a widespread outbreak of the H1N1 virus, according to a study released by the YPartnership and the U.S. Travel Association.

About 45 percent said they would postpone their trip until the outbreak subsided, another 32 percent said they would choose a different destination and 31 percent said they would cancel their trip, the data showed.

“It doesn't surprise me. I think people have made it very clear of their fears and their concerns over the pandemic flu,” said Stephen Greene, president and CEO of the Myrtle Beach Area Hospitality Association. “It's something that obviously we'll continue to monitor.”

During the last several months, the association has sent several e-mails to its members giving them tips on the best ways to keep employees and guests healthy, Greene said.

The group's Web site also has a pandemic flu booklet for staff and managers, a travel industry flu preparedness checklist and links to other Web sites that can give the latest information on the H1N1 virus.

Everything is in place for preparing the businesses to decrease their chances of spreading the virus, but if it became a “full-blown issue” in the area, officials would act accordingly, Greene said.

For more on this story, read Tourism Talk in the Money section of Sunday's edition of The Sun News.

Occupancy rates sink over the past week; 50 percent or below expected for Halloween

Over the last weekend, hotel, hotel-condo and campgrounds occupancy numbers dipped nearly 15 percent lower than the same weekend in 2008, according to the latest data from the Clay Brittain Jr. Center for Resort Tourism at Coastal Carolina University.

The weekend occupancy was 48.2 percent and the midweek average along the Grand Strand was about 33.6 percent.

The average daily rate was down 3.5 percent during the week and 6.9 percent over the weekend, forcing the revenue per available unit, or the amount of money generated from each room rented, down nearly 16 percent from the equivalent week last year, according to the data.

The center is not expecting a burst in occupancy for the Halloween weekend, seeing as though the holiday historically does not typically attract larger-than-usual crowds to the Myrtle Beach area.

Officials are forecasting that the hotel occupancy for this weekend will be below 50 percent.

Occupancy rates sink over the past week; 50 percent or below expected for Halloween

Over the last weekend, hotel, hotel-condo and campgrounds occupancy numbers dipped nearly 15 percent lower than the same weekend in 2008, according to the latest data from the Clay Brittain Jr. Center for Resort Tourism at Coastal Carolina University.

The weekend occupancy was 48.2 percent and the midweek average along the Grand Strand was about 33.6 percent.

The average daily rate was down 3.5 percent during the week and 6.9 percent over the weekend, forcing the revenue per available unit, or the amount of money generated from each room rented, down nearly 16 percent from the equivalent week last year, according to the data.

The center is not expecting a burst in occupancy for the Halloween weekend, seeing as though the holiday historically does not typically attract larger-than-usual crowds to the Myrtle Beach area.

Officials are forecasting that the hotel occupancy for this weekend will be below 50 percent.

Atlantic Beach town council candidates talk tourism

The small town of Atlantic Beach is known for its annual Memorial Day Bikefest and for the large crowds – and complaints – it draws.

The three candidates running for the two open seats in the town council elections on Tuesday – Paul Curry, Josephine Isom and Charlene Taylor – have varied opinions on the the future of Bikefest and ways to draw tourists to the town.

Curry, who is the only non-incumbent in the race, has been a consistently vocal opponent of the Bikefest.

He describes himseslf as pro-tourism, but said he has a problem with the loud noise that Bikefest brings, along with the public consumption of alcohol, the unlawful use of golf carts by town officials and the large number of vendors selling counterfeit goods.

“I don't see a single motorcycle dealer setting up in Atlantic Beach,” he said. “If it's billed as the Memorial Day weekend Bikefest, then the vendors ought to be geared toward those potential attendees.”

“It probably needs to be scaled back, because when development comes, people aren't going to tolerate parties until three in the morning and people drinking alcohol in the street,” he said.

Taylor said the noise is to be expected and shouldn't come as a surprise or disappointment to anyone.

“The bikers come in town and they're going to bring noise. They are noisy,” she said. “We can't tell them not to come because they're going to come regardless.”

It's not much different from decades ago when African Americans flocked to Atlantic Beach during segregation, Taylor said.

“We had open-air everything. It wasn't closed in. We had everything open then, and there was noise then. What's the difference between then and the noise now?,” she said. “And that's only for just a weekend. It's not weeks at a time, and back in the day, it would last all summer.”

Bikefest, which started by a small, close-knit group of friends in 1980, has grown to bring as many as 200,000 to 400,000 participants, and dozens of vendors who sell T-shirts, compact discs, jewelry, purses and Jamaican food.

Curry said the event has become an inconvenience for many residents because of parking and driving restrictions, Curry said.

Read more on this story in Tourism Talk in the Money section of Sunday's edition of The Sun News.

Local company forms to aid ailing Myrtle Beach area hotels

A group of local hotel and commercial real estate leaders have formed a company intended to help hoteliers who are struggling to pay their bills.

Tradd Hospitality Resources, which partners with Tradd Commercial, a Myrtle Beach-based real estate organization, opened this week as a first-of-its-kind business in the area.

The 12-person team will offer hotel owners and lenders a range of hotel asset recovery services, including hotel and condominium management, asset management, repositioning of assets, hospitality asset valuation services, qualified receivership, brokerage and homeowners association management, officials said.

"I think Myrtle Beach as a market has had two down seasons in a row, and I think that this is unfortunately where a lot of the operators are looking. ... The operation costs are the same but the revenue has been cut in half," said Brown Bethune, one of the company's principals and a senior adviser for Tradd Commercial.

It is expected that within the next couple of years, the economy will lead to the largest transfer of hotel wealth in history, and the Myrtle Beach area is no exception, said Doug Billings, broker-in-charge of Tradd Hospitality Services.

The company may also help investors from the area and across the country gather the funds to acquire distressed hotel assets, he said.

"We work with hundreds of people throughout the United States," Billings said. "We are in contact with them because they are the people that have the ability to buy those assets when those assets are available."

Not many companies offer such a wide range of services specifically for the hospitality industry, said Robert Burney, a finance professor at Coastal Carolina University.

"There's a general consensus that we got overheated in some of those type properties," he said. "I do believe that there are a lot of investors that are in positions financially now that they didn't anticipate and all of those situations have to be worked out."

The Grand Strand hotel market can be unique and challenging for first-time hotel buyers, especially with its seasonality, but the group will use its local expertise to ease the process, Bethune said.

There are an estimated 100,000 hotel rooms in the market, and the area would need 20 million tourists a year to fill them - only 14 million come each year - but hotel ownership and management must improve before that's possible, Billings said.

"We have the expertise and systems in place to take over management of single assets or portfolios immediately, asset manage and operate them, provide a value option, develop the appropriate buy, sell or hold strategy, and offer comprehensive hotel brokerage services," he said.

Woody Crosby, president of the Jordan Properties hotel group, said Tradd Hospitality will have a market in the next couple of years with distressed properties, but he will reserve judgment on the group.

"I do think that there's a reason for them being out there," he said. "It depends on the resources they have available. It's kind of yet to be seen."

The costs of Tradd Hospitality services will vary, Billings said.

Brokerage costs are negotiable, and asset, property and homeowners association management will be determined by the services and personnel needed, he said. In receivership situations, the fees would be worked out with the appointing court.

Hospitality group unveils tourism Web site aimed at residents

On Tuesday, officials from the Myrtle Beach Area Hospitality Association unveiled a Web site, Tourismworksforus.com, to share the importance of local tourism to residents and business leaders.

"Currently, 70,000 people's jobs in our community are directly affected by the success or failure of the tourism industry," said Stephen Greene, president and CEO of the association. "Any way you slice it, we need to find ways, including additional advertising dollars, to grow our tourism economy and preserve our quality of life."

The site is a compilation of statistics and video testimonials, and has a section called "What if There Were No Tourists" showing the economic effect of tourism on taxes, population, restaurants, golf courses and retail.

Beginning this week, a series of public service announcements and advertisements will run, Greene said.

Many hotels and motels along the Grand Strand had to slash prices and sacrifice revenue to attract guests throughout the last several months, but two hoteliers at Tuesday's announcement shared some positive results from the season.

Wyndham Vacation Ownership Inc., which owns 1,000 condominiums in Myrtle Beach, saw a 2 percent increase in occupancy from last year, is ahead of the forecasted sales pace and has an employee base that's even with last year, said Todd Race, vice president of sales and marketing with the company's S.C. division.

"From those measurable standpoints, the economy's looking good in Myrtle Beach," he said.

Bob Barenberg, general manager of the Hilton Hotels Corp. along the Grand Strand, said he was pleasantly surprised by the occupancy results from the last four months.

"Three of the four months were actually up," he said. "The results of 2009 have exceeded all of our expectations. It's not to say business is up, but ... it is a trend that I think is very, very positive and we see it continuing into October."

Myrtle Beach chamber, HGTC team up to host business mixer

The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and Horry-Georgetown Technical College will host a business mixer Thursday for people interested in the school’s career programs designed to prepare graduates to work in the local hospitality industry.

 

The free, public event, which will take place from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., will give students the change to tour the Speir Health Science Education Center, meet with students in the program and munch on food samples prepared by students of the HGTC culinary arts technology program, according to chamber spokeswoman Nancy Gray.

 

“It’s a real pleasure to … offer the local business community a unique opportunity to discover this gem of a resource,” said Brant Branham, chairman of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. “The chamber recognizes that the success of local job sectors, from food service to health care to turf management, depends on a well-trained workforce in sync with employers’ needs.”

 

Attendees are to meet at HGTC’s conference center at 950 Crabtree Lane in Myrtle Beach and will be shuttled from the conference center to the Speir Health Science Education Center.

 

HGTC can assist employers with job assessment, employee skills measurement and program implementation and evaluation processes, Gray said. The college develops individualized training programs in leadership, management, supervision, organizational enrichment and customer service.

 

 “Our mission at HGTC includes marrying college to community,” said Dr. Philip Render, dean of health sciences, business and agriculture. “Joint meetings with our area business leaders strengthen those bonds, along with keeping industry and higher education working cooperatively for the benefit of the greater Grand Strand area.”

 

Attendees must register for the event at MyrtleBeachAreaChamber.com.

Six-week average 12 percent higher than in 2008

For the last six weeks, the average hotel occupancy has been 12 percent higher than the same period in 2008, according to the latest data from the Clay Brittain Jr. Center for Resort Tourism at Coastal Carolina University.

It's important to note that about a year ago, the economy began its downward spiral into the visible signs of the recession.

From the period of Aug. 23 through Oct. 3, 54.4 percent of the lodging properties in the center's voluntary sample of hotels, condo-hotels and campgrounds along the Grand Strand were occupied, officials said.

Average daily rate was down by 2 percent from 2008, according to the data.

Last weekend, the average occupancy rate was 65.7 percent, up 2.3 percent from 2008. During the previous week, occupancy averaged about 47 percent.

Brittain Center officials forecast that the average hotel, condo-hotel and campground occupancy this weekend will be near or above 60 percent, or about 4 percent higher than in 2008. About 38 percent of hotel rooms along the Strand will likely be full during next week, they say.