HOLLAND, MI (WHTC) – Occupancy rates have risen in Holland with hotels reporting a banner year for 2016.
Sally Laukitis executive director of the Holland Visitors Bureau at says at 66.7 percent, that’s up 1.7 percent over last year.
The CVB tracks the number of rooms in their inventory which consists of hotels with ten or more rooms in the City of Holland, Holland Township, Park Township and Hudsonville. They also track the number of rooms.
“When I started in 1994, we had 750 rooms. Right now we have 1, 657 rooms. It was just a great year. We’re looking forward to another good year. We attribute a lot of it to the fact that our budget has grown. As our budget has grown our marketing reach has grown. As our marketing reach has grown, more people hear about us..so it’s that’s circle.”
Laukitis says if we did not have the New Courtyard By Marriot hotel in downtown Holland, the increase would have been higher because there more rooms to fill. She says it gives people more options and they are delighted they are there.
Laukitis says three new hotels could be built in the next year and be ready to go in 2018. One of them is Home 2 Suites by Hilton which will be on Westshore Drive near the Shops at Westshore.
Extended stay properties are different than overnight stay properties. The CVB’s entire budget is predicated on the five percent room assessment so occupancies are very important. With two extended stay properties in the area, once a person stays longer than 29 nights they are no longer considered a transient they back out all the room assessment and the CVB gets nothing. If they stay 28 nights the CVB gets 5% for every night.
Laukitis says the extended stay properties fill a void for our major corporations.
