Inside the Industry

Strand sees low occupancy for Thanksgiving week, researchers forecast under 1/4 of hotel rooms occupied this weekend

Hotel, hotel-condo and campgrounds average occupancy was down quite a bit compared to 2008 during the week of the Thanksgiving holiday, according to the latest data from the Clay Brittain Jr. Center for Resort Tourism at Coastal Carolina University. 

The midweek occupancy rates averaged 18.7 percent during the week of Nov. 22 through Nov. 28, about 13.5 percent lower than the same period last year, the data showed.

Over the weekend, the average occupancy rate was about 38 percent, up 2.8 percent from the same weekend in 2008.

The average daily rate was down by 0.2 percent during the midweek period and down by 11.6 percent during the weekend period from a year ago, pushing the revenue per available unit down by 10.4 percent.

Based on weather reports that are predicting a 30 to 50 percent chance or precipitation this weekend, and considering that historically, this weekend is one of the slowest weeks for hotels, condo-hotels and campsites along the Grand Strand, the Brittain Center is forecasting an average hotel occupancy of about 22 percent.

Two local campgrounds earn top ranking

A Myrtle Beach campground and a Longs campground recently earned a top national ranking.

In November, the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds named Myrtle Beach's Ocean Lakes Family Campground and Longs' Willow Tree Resort two of 31 "A-rated" campgrounds and resorts nationally.

The association also awarded the Ocean Lakes Campground with a Plan-It Green Award. The award was presented to Ocean Lakes for its iCare Program aimed at helping reduce the environmental impact of the campground and its guests, according to a statement.

The iCare program was created in August 2008. This summer, guests recycled more than 26,000 pounds of waste using the five iCare stations currently available at the campground. More recycle stations are planned for 2010.

The rankings were a result of more than 17,000 camping and RV enthusiasts who participated in an online survey, evaluating guest experiences at 1,840 independent campgrounds and resorts across America.

MB makes top 10 list for AOL searches

Myrtle Beach was one of this year's top 10 most-searched vacation destinations on America Online, which officials from the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce say may be a byproduct of the group's heightened marketing efforts this year.

Myrtle Beach's vacation home rentals, beaches and golf courses popularity with families helped the area make it to the list, Beth Caulfield, editor-in-chief of AOL Travel, told the Washington Post.

“It's great to see the Myrtle Beach area in the top 10 most-searched vacation destinations on AOL,” said Scott Schult, the chamber's executive vice president of marketing. “What surprises me as we are mentioned alongside states and countries.”

The other locations that made the cut include Disney World, Disneyland, Las Vegas, Florida, Hawaii, Mexico, Costa Rica, Italy, Colorado and the Grand Canyon.

“It speaks to our increased investment in marketing this year as well as our overall marketing strategy,” Schult said. “We have better aligned our resources with media assets that perform to give us the best return.”

The chamber used a more integrated approach with its marketing investment, featuring a much stronger online program that culminated with Myrtle Beach being the featured destination of the week on AOL Travel for eight hours this past summer, he said.

That feat alone set a record for daily visitation to the chamber's Web site, www.VisitMyrtleBeach.com at more than 51,000 unique visitors.

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

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.