Shamin Hotels CEO Neil Amin is counting on sports tourism to fill rooms while the hotel industry suffers a decline in bookings. (Photo by Zaid Hamid)
As clean and sure as a surgeon’s knife, the coronavirus pandemic has cut into the heart of the Richmond region’s tourism and hospitality industry.
The patient survives and is now awaiting better days.
“We’ve had recessions, we’ve had terrorist attacks, but for a pandemic, no one has an answer,” says Jack Berry, president and CEO of Richmond Region Tourism (RRT), the nonprofit that serves as the region’s primary tourism marketer.
Berry, who has headed the region’s tourism efforts for nearly three decades and seen nearly everything, says, “There is no rulebook on this.”
In a year-to-date comparison of the first six months of 2019 vs. the first six months of 2020, hotel occupancy dropped by 30.5% in the Richmond-Petersburg metropolitan statistical area, according to STR, a global hotel data provider.
STR says revenue per room dropped by 15.6% as corporate travel has largely stopped and more expensive rooms are not being rented. The Greater Richmond Convention Center says that hotel sales for fiscal year 2019-20 dipped 11.7% over four regional jurisdictions: Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties and the city of Richmond.
Total hotel sales are $331 million, compared to $375 million the previous year.
The downward spiral in the hotel industry also is chipping away at the finances of RRT, which receives 1.75% of the region’s 8% hotel occupancy tax to support marketing efforts.
For the 2019 fiscal year, a record $30 million in hotel occupancy taxes were collected. The region was on pace for another record year when the coronavirus derailed the momentum.
For the 2020 fiscal year ending June 30, $24 million was collected.
“It was off by 19.79%,” Berry says. “In the middle of March was when the doors shut.”
“Half of March was good, half of March was awful. April was the worst month.”
To save money, Berry says his staff is not traveling and not making sales calls.
Virginia Tourism Corporation, the statewide agency for tourism promotion, has adopted a position that says in part, “We look forward to the day when you can visit again — and we’ll be here when you’re ready.”
Its WanderLove campaign promotes scenic road trips, outdoor destinations and off-the-beaten-path attractions as ways for Virginians to vacation close to home.
In campaigns being launched in Tidewater, Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., Berry says RRT is taking a similar “when you’re ready” approach.
Because the Richmond region is a short drive from those areas and offers good restaurants and numerous outdoor venues, Berry expects that as people look to get away, this region will be a preferred choice.
If there’s a bright spot amid the gloom, Berry says, it’s been sports tourism.
“Sports tourism hasn’t missed a beat,” he says. “I have 30 events this summer of sports tourism.”
Events included a senior softball tournament in August, soccer, lacrosse and archery tournaments and a senior bowling tournament.
Chesterfield’s Neil Amin, the CEO of Shamin Hotels, the largest hotel operator in Virginia, has high hopes for what sports tourism can do for the hotel industry.
“Sports tourism is definitely a key demand driver that will recover first and assist in a quicker recovery for our industry,” he says via email.
Dan Schmitt, board chair of RRT and owner of RMC Events, which provides personnel for tourism events across the commonwealth, says, “My doomsday is hotel operators not surviving. When we get moving again, we need those properties to be successful.”
