April 22–WILLIAMSBURG — As reported by STR, Inc. (formerly Smith Travel Research), March’s hotel occupancy numbers in the greater Williamsburg were bad.
How bad?
“They are dismal,” wrote Ron Kirkland, executive director of the Williamsburg Hotel-Motel Association in an e-mail.
Occupancy in the Historic Triangle was 35.9 percent in March, off from 42 percent in March, 2013. None of the other hotel numbers were positive either. Average daily room rate was down nearly $10, from $84.31 to $74.97 and revenue per available room was down from $35.38 to $26.91.
Greater Williamsburg’s occupancy number was much worse than that of the 12 markets STR, Inc. uses as comparables. Of those, Gatlingburg/Pigeon Forge, Tenn. was the next lowest at 46.3 percent. The national occupancy rate was 65.3 percent in March and the Virginia rate was 57.6 percent.
Those numbers make it hard to blame all of the poor attendance on two obvious reasons — that March was unseasonably cold and snowy, and that Easter, and thus the majority of the Spring Break business — fell in April instead of March this year.
“I would just point out that they have bad weather in other destinations too, and as far as I know the other destinations celebrate Easter the same time that Williamsburg and every other place in America does,” Kirkland said. “For some strange reason, the weather and Easter seem to have a more adverse effect on Williamsburg than any other competitive destination.”
Kirkland is right. Williamsburg’s occupancy rate was off 14.5 percentage points. The next largest decrease among competitive markets was Charlottesville, down only 7.6 percentage points, despite seeing more March snow than the Historic Triangle.
STR, Inc. numbers frequently don’t tell the whole story in greater Williamsburg because some hotels don’t report their occupancy to STR. It makes estimates based on occupancy at comparably priced facilities. The two most important non-reporters are Colonial Williamsburg and Great Wolf Lodge, both of which have told the Gazette that their occupancy tends to run a little better than what STR reports for upscale hotels in this market.
Although occupancy in all three area localities was down, it was down the most in James City County, where March occupancy was only 29.9 percent.
