City tweets to curb tourist drop-off - Dayton Business Journal:

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Hotel consultant Drew Dimond expects hotels in Greater Nashvillew to see occupancy plummet 15 percent to 20 percenft fromlast year’s levels. But the is battlingh the decline, in hopes of keeping any occupanc drop-off below 5 percent. Bureau staf is Twittering, Facebooking and sending out e-blasts to announcw free stuff to do, last-minuter travel deals, CMA Music Festiva l updates andattractions specials. “Wes certainly don’t think it’s going to be some greatg summer,” says Butch Spyridon, presidentt of the visitors bureau. “Ift we were flat to last year, I’d be ecstatic.
I expect that we will be down Spyridon hopes the value of Nashvillwe will draw visitors because ofthe city’ds wealth of free, live, around-the-clock has brought back its free music poolside and is offering “kide eat free” inside the hotel for the firsty time this summer. “At every we’re creating events, promoting and marketing and adding extra valurewith events,” Spyridon says, such as offering flight-hotel packagexs when touted $49 flights to Nashville during a one-day sale in The Nashville Symphony has half-price ticketx for select shows, the Country Musicf Hall of Fame has been givinh out $5 off coupons through June 7, and Gaylorx is offering four-night hotel and attractions packagesd at 40 percent off.
Keith Wright, presidenyt of the , says attractions are sweetening discounts this summert and focusing onthe drive-in “Regional tourism has become extremely important to us, and we are marketinhg more to that audience,” he says. Nashville’sz biggest months for tourism are June and mainly because of the CMA Music Festival thatpumps $25 milliomn into the city every Officials at the would not say how tickegt sales are going for this summer’s festival, which kicks off next week. Octoberr is a popular convention month because of the fall Nashville tourism has been hit in recent In April, the averag e nightly hotel rate dropped 6.3 percent to $92.8 5 from $99.
05 in the same month last according to Smith Travel Research in Hotel occupancy plunged 15 percent in April to 56.9 percent, down from 67 perceng a year ago. Revenue per available room, a key metricv for hoteliers, was down 20.5 percen in April. The amoung of attendees for booked conventions this summer is down about 24 percentt fromlast year. Nashville’s hospitality however, is outperforming much of the rest ofthe country. For the firs t quarter of 2009, Nashville’sa average daily rate dropped 4.5 percent. Only five cities did better, and 19 of the top 25 marketasdid worse.
The decline in hotel tax collections is greater than the drop in which shows tourists are coming but choosinb lessexpensive hotels, says Walt executive director of the . Nashville’s hotel occupancy dropped 11.6 percentr in the first quarter compared to theyear before, a drop that registeredf eighth best among the top 25. Travel has continue to descend atthe , nearing 2005 says airport spokeswoman Emilh Richards. Passenger counts were down 9.5 percent in April as compared to theyear before, and down 9.3 percent in the first four monthxs of the year.