Newport’s hotel stays dip but still beat goal
Newport Beach’s largest hotels beat the annual room-night goal set for them last year by the local visitors bureau.
The hotels in the city’s Tourism Business Improvement District, composed of most of Newport’s full-service hotels, recorded 84,520 room nights in fiscal 2016-17, Michelle Donahue of Visit Newport Beach, the city’s contracted conventions and visitors bureau, said at the district board’s semiannual meeting Wednesday. A room night is a statistical measure meaning one hotel room occupied for one night.
The goal was 83,000 room nights.
Though the consortium topped its goal, the number came in about 5% less than the previous year, which recorded 89,062 stays.
Donahue, Visit Newport Beach’s senior vice president of sales, said sales leads are softening. She couldn’t attribute it to one cause, instead suggesting a general economic weakness.
The goal for fiscal 2017-18 will remain 83,000 room nights. TBID board Chairwoman Debbie Snavely, representing the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel & Spa, said that’s aggressive in light of the softening and a drop in room inventory as the Radisson and Duke (formerly Fairmont) hotels undergo major renovations and rebrandings.
TBID provides marketing and sales promotions to boost local tourist, meeting and event business. Member hotels, which join the district voluntarily, pay a tax toward those efforts, which are coordinated by Visit Newport Beach.
The TBID board represents the Balboa Bay Resort, Duke Hotel, Hyatt Regency, Island Hotel, Newport Beach Marriott Bayview, Newport Beach Marriott Hotel & Spa, Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort & Marina and Radisson Newport Beach, eight of the city’s nine full-service hotels. The Resort at Pelican Hill is not part of the district.
The board will meet again in January.
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