2007 "Best Year Ever" for Tourism

The Savannah Convention and Visitors Bureau says we just had our best year ever but a hotel survey says we aren’t filling up all the new rooms being built.
 
Since it opened in December, Mark Dana’s new Holiday Inn Express on Bay Street is doing better than he expected. “Initially opening a hotel you start off soft but we really came out of it like a cannon.”
 
As if to drive home the point of the hotel's success, while trying to find a room to photograph for this story, we rode up and down the elevator from floor to floor looking from room to room with no luck. Most had guests in or just checking out of them.
 
Of course, Dana and his company, Savannah Lodging Inc, expected to be successful here. Otherwise, why spend the money to build a 143-room property in the heart of the historic district? “We're doing pretty well, yeah, absolutely.”
 
The Holiday Inn Express is not the only new player in town. “The number of new hotels, which translates into available hotel rooms to sell, has gone up astronomically,” Explains Savannah Convention and Visitors Bureau President Joe Marinelli. 

According to the Smith Travel Research or “STaR” report, between May of 07 and May of 08, the number of hotel rooms in Savannah jumped 8.4%. Without looking it up, Marinelli estimates “We're up to about 13,500 hotel rooms.” The reason for the hotel building boom is simple, year over year Savannah tourism has grown by about half a billion dollars since 2004.
 
 Click for Savannah Tourism Numbers 2004-2007
 

More than 6.6 million people visited Savannah in 2007 that’s about 13,000 more than the year before. On average, each of them spent about $15 more during their stay bringing us a total of $1.99 Billion in tourism revenue. Those numbers make 2007 the best year ever in terms of tourism according to Marinelli. However, he and others in the industry are hoping it won’t be our last “best year ever”.
 
According to the most recent figures, Marinelli says we are looking at about a 5% drop in total tourism business in 2008. Comparing year over year, Smith reports a 1.6% drop in hotel rooms sold in May of 08. For Dana, that number is hardly worth mentioning. “Given the fact that inventory has increased so much and we are keeping up with that inventory relative to the occupancy I'd say it shows us we are still promising.”