THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 24, 1995 TAG: 9509230106
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 09 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Hurricane Felix put a big damper on the resort hotel business in late August, although the huge storm did nothing more than huff and puff harmlessly 400 miles off the Virginia coast.
Going into August, resort businesses were experiencing a banner year due to a succession of hot, sunny weeks.
But the hurricane and a host of others that followed scared potential visitors away from the city's beaches, local hoteliers agree.
The amount of their losses in terms of room rentals varies from property to property, but Henry Richardson, president of the Virginia Beach Hotel and Motel Association, sized up the situation this way:
``Basically it sucked our business dry, '' he told members at a Thursday afternoon meeting.
Felix also had an effect on the second annual American Music Festival on Labor Day weekend, which was only modestly attended, said Richardson.
While the festival was deemed a success by Oceanfront business operators, Richardson and other innkeepers believe the hurricane threat reduced the number of paying customers at the six-day program and at beachfront hotels and restaurants.
A late-starting marketing effort shares the blame as well, innkeepers agreed Thursday.
Efforts already are under way to improve and expand the marketing of the festival to areas beyond the Beach's traditional customer base in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and in Northern and Southwestern Virginia, Richardson said.
Exact tallies of hotel, motel and restaurant sales for the summer - numbers that tell the story of the success or failure of local tourism - have yet to be compiled, Richardson said.
Those figures will be gathered, computed and released to the public in mid-October by the city's Convention and Visitor Development office.
Hoteliers suggested Thursday that an aggressive marketing campaign also is needed to ensure the success of the upcoming ``Holiday Lights at the Beach'' program, a winter Boardwalk lighting extravaganza that will extend from Nov. 22 through Jan. 7.
To jump-start the light show the city shelled out $750,000 from its Tourism Growth Investment Fund - a money pool fed by special hotel and restaurant taxes to beautify resort streets and beef up the tourism business - to buy the elaborate holiday illumination system.
The idea, which originated within the hotel and motel association, is aimed at extending the tourism season into the winter months. Organizers are working with resort restaurant operators and merchants to keep their businesses open during the light show, a period in which they normally are closed.
Ancillary events, such as parades, entertainment and holiday choral programs, are being organized to coincide with the light show to offer beachfront visitors more to do, other than view the Boardwalk lights.
Similar light shows have been produced with great success in Williamsburg, Newport News and Norfolk, as well as in Gatlinburg, Tenn., and Myrtle Beach, S.C., Richardson noted. by CNB