NWI tourism bureaus joust over hotel stay numbers
BY Teresa Auch Schultz tauch@post-trib.com February 3, 2012 6:04PM
President and CEO of the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority Speros Batistatos talks about the raise in parking fees during the announcement of the dates and acts for Gary's South Shore Air Show at the Indiana Welcome Center Wednesday, April 27, 2011, in Hammond, Ind. The Air Show will take place July 15-17, 2011, and headliner acts include the US Air Force's F-22 Raptor, US Army Golden Knights Parachute Team and the Heavy Metal Jet Team. | Scott M. Bort~Sun-Times Media
Updated: March 5, 2012 8:07AM
A war of words has broken out between the visitor bureaus in Lake and Porter counties over what numbers best show how hotels in the region are doing.
Indiana Dunes Tourism, which handles tourism for Porter County, sent out a release Friday objecting to a statement made by South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority President and CEO Speros Batistatos the day before.
Batistatos mentioned during a news conference about the boost that Lake County’s hotel occupancy rate for 2010 was at 60 percent while Porter County’s was at 42 percent.
Indiana Dunes objected, though, saying Batistatos got the number wrong — it was 54.6 percent — and he failed to mention two other areas in which Porter County actually performed better than Lake County.
Lorelei Weimer, executive director for Indiana Dunes Tourism, said her organization tries to stay away from occupancy rate numbers because they can be volatile. If more rooms are added, the rate can drop even if the same number of rooms are rented.
Weimer said although the occupancy rate is a number hotels use, her Tourism Board prefers to focus on the percent change of room revenue and the number of rooms rented out from year to year.
Porter County saw a room revenue increase of 11.2 percent from 2010 to 2011, while Lake County had an 8.1 percent increase. Porter County’s number of rooms sold increased by 9.3 percent in that same time period; Lake County’s increased by 5 percent.
Mitch Nichols, president of Nichols Tourism Group, which Porter County works with, said occupancy rate is an important factor but the numbers highlighting growth or decline are “critically important.”
“I don’t know any destination across the country where they would not be looking at growth in demand that had occurred,” he said.
Batistatos did apologize for quoting the incorrect number, saying it came after a question from a reporter at the event and that he had stressed then that he was not sure if the number was correct. He also said his intent was not to show Lake County as doing better than Porter County but to show that both of the counties and LaPorte County need help to bring in more tourism to fill their hotel rooms.
However, he defended the use of the occupancy rate, saying it’s a part of the main number that tourism bureaus actually use. That number compares the room revenue to occupancy rate to find out how much money a hotel makes per room. Lake County made about $47 a room in 2011 while Porter County made $40 a room.
“I don’t even know what to say about that,” Batistatos said of Weimer’s and Nichols’ comments. “That’s how we’re judged.”
He said to focus on only room revenue change and the change in number of rooms sold is to pick and choose which numbers someone would show a tourism board and people looking at the numbers would need the context of the other numbers to provide a complete picture.
“You can’t just choose one that makes you look better that day,” he said.
He said Lake County has about four times the number of rooms that Porter County has, making it harder for Lake County to show such large increases as Porter County has.
The increase for Porter County is good news, he said, but the fact remains that Porter County, like the other counties in the region, still has room for improvement.
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