Raleigh County’s occupancy rates for April and May have almost bounced back to pre-Covid rates, Lisa Strader, executive director of Visit Southern West Virginia, told the Raleigh County Commission on Tuesday.
“Hotels are coming back,” said Strader during the regular meeting.
Hotels struggled through 2020 when the National Jamboree, State Fair of West Virginia, and other events were postponed to 2021. The rental of cabins and campsites skyrocketed while Covid guidelines placed restrictions on hotels.
“These numbers give us a very optimistic outlook for our future,” said Strader after the meeting. “The hotel / motel tax is used to promote our region as a travel destination and is essentially a reinvestment to constantly get travelers to stay in our accommodations and replenish their coffers.
“The remainder of the hotel / motel tax remains in the county, city or town where it is levied to be used for parks, recreation, beautification, etc., among other things.
“The hotel / motel tax is split equally between the promotion and the administrative authority that collects the tax.”
The 2021 Visit Southern West Virginia report and the annual marketing plan that Strader presented to Commission President Dave Tolliver and Commissioners Linda Epling and Greg Duckworth show that the daily rate for hotels and motels, which varies between hotels in the area, is above from 2019 in May is around five percent on average.
In 2020, the rate is about 20 percent lower than in 2019, she added.
Strader expects the higher occupancy of hotels and motels to continue after Covid.
“At the beginning of the pandemic and throughout 2020, many segments of the hospitality and travel industries were hit very hard,” said Strader after the meeting on Tuesday. “As travelers began to visit on a limited basis, we saw an increasing interest in camping and cabins, with a slow and steady recovery for our hotel properties.
“According to the latest STR Destination Report, we are seeing our Raleigh County property occupancy rates almost back to 2019 percentages for both April and May, and the average daily rate is slightly higher than 2019,” she added. “We’ve spoken to our local properties and we know they are busy.
“We will be very interested to see the occupancy for June and the rest of the year.”
The STR report produced by STR compares the market in southern West Virginia with the competitive markets.
Visit Southern West Virginia’s annual report shows that overnight tourism spending in the state was $ 2.765 billion in 2019, an increase of 0.09 percent from 2017, while tourists spent $ 997 million on accommodations in West Virginia, Spends $ 638 million on food and drink and $ 356 million on recreational activities, $ 373 million on retail purchases and $ 312 million on transportation.
The marketing budget for 2021 is $ 610,915, which is 56 percent of the group’s annual budget of $ 1,081,515, the report shows.
Strader said the prospects for the region are good based on the data collected.
“We are really, really back,” she told the commissioners during the meeting.
