|
| Hotels offer deals to keep tourism flowing By Mark Noack [ mark@hmbreview.com ] Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 12:58 PM PST Winter has always been the offseason for Coastside lodgings. But combine that with the lousy economic times, and you have a recipe for tough choices — for both hotel-owners and Half Moon Bay in general. The city has become increasingly dependent on hotel taxes, drawing more than one third of its total revenues from local lodgings. And while the revenues have been a reliable funding source in better times, the economic downfall starting last summer severely cut into tourist traffic. The city lost more than $390,000 this year from dwindling hotel traffic, according to city financial records. Now facing about a 20 percent decline in business, local hotel owners hope the downward trend for hotels will turn around soon. “Given the current state of the economy, people are sitting on their wallets, and we’re trying to do more than we have in the past,” said Rick Ellis, chairman of Business Improvement District, the local consortium of hotel and lodging owners Ellis, who also owns the Old Thyme Inn, says that nearly every hotel on the coast is offering reduced prices, package deals or other incentives to try and draw overnight lodgers. San Benito House employee Terrance Hagin says months ago his hotel could rely on big-spending clientele who couldn’t book a room at the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, and who would pay more than $100 for a downtown room. But Hagin says those times are long gone. Two months ago, the San Benito House drastically reduced its prices to regain customers, and now it claims the “lowest prices in Half Moon Bay” -- $49 for a bedroom on a weeknight. “Before we reduced our rates, there would be weekdays when there would be no one. It just wasn’t happening because customers didn’t want to spend any money,” Hagin said. “Now, we’re actually almost booked solid on four to five days of the week.” Hagin says that if the low prices can lure guests to stay the night, they’ll be likely to provide further business at the establishment’s bar, restaurant and deli. Cutting prices to get some business is definitely better than getting none at all, says Jamie Barber, owner of the Half Moon Bay Inn. Barber says she’s lowered her average room prices about 25 percent in recent weeks and has offered package deals including free meals at downtown restaurants. “I don’t feel like it’s a time right now when I can charge normal prices,” Barber said. “A lot of people are asking for better deals now, far more than in the past.” The number of hotel guests is considered an important bellwether for business in general on the Coastside. The logic among local business leaders is that overnight guests will spread their money around, frequenting multiple shops and restaurants. Charise McHugh, president and CEO of the Half Moon Bay Coastside Chamber of Commerce and Visitors’ Bureau says she is ramping up advertising for the city that emphasizes how close Half Moon Bay is to the rest of the Bay Area. “(On average), 80 percent of our guests are from Northern California,” McHugh said. “That’s why we’re doing advertising throughout the Bay Area.” The new ad campaign emphasizes Half Moon Bay as a scenic tourist escape that is less than one car-tank of gas from the urban areas of the Bay Area. McHugh says she hopes the new advertisements net results in the coming weeks as Half Moon Bay comes out of the winter doldrums. |