Oops. Looks like that nasty rumor circulating through the DNC about the Emperor not wearing clothes is starting to dampen their enthusiasm.
Posted on 08/24/2012 5:12:27 AM PDT by lwd
SALISBURY — Hotels in Rowan County probably won’t be seeing the boom in business they expected for the approaching Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.
James Meacham, executive director of the Rowan-Salisbury Tourism Development Authority, said four Salisbury hotels set aside a total of about 400 rooms for convention attendees. Of those, only seven or eight were booked through the Democratic National Convention Committee.
Thursday morning, those few reservations were canceled, after unreserved rooms were released back to the hotels last week.
“Now, no hotels in Salisbury have reservations for the convention,” said Krista Osterweil, general manager of the Hampton Inn.
That doesn’t count people who made reservations directly, though, Meacham said. It’s also possible that local hotels will pick up a good number of last-minute bookings before the event, which takes place Sept. 4-6. The hotels can’t track these as easily, because they aren’t handled by the convention committee.
He said occupancy rates are getting better each day. While tourism revenues probably won’t reach as high as projected, Meacham said, they should still be better than this time last year.
“I was never really projecting any type of massive economic impact from this, because even if we filled up 400 rooms here, all their time would be spent in Charlotte,” he said. “The most net impact would be to hotels directly.”
Meacham said groups attending the event likely started booking rooms at hotels in or near Charlotte and worked their way out, based on distance from the convention. Salisbury is one of the “perimeter cities” that are farther away, he said.
“All indications were that we were still expecting to get a significant portion of the 400 picked up, but obviously the room demand wasn’t there for them,” Meacham said.
Osterweil said she does have some reservations in the system for that week, but it’s hard to tell for sure whether they’re related to the convention.
The committee had asked for 80 percent of the hotel’s inventory, she said, which works out to about 95 rooms.
“I never expected they would use all of them, but I would’ve expected some,” Osterweil said.
Until recently, the Hampton Inn was expected to be completely booked during the convention, she said. Now she expects something closer to 60 or 70 percent occupancy.
“I think, ultimately, we are going to come out OK, but of course it’s more of a struggle at this point as a group than we expected,” she said. “It’s disappointing that we didn’t get to participate and be a part of the convention.”
Cyndi Greenwood, general manager of Comfort Suites, said the committee had asked for a block of 65 rooms there, but none were reserved. She said the hotel would typically be half full the first week of September, and now the occupancy rate is a fraction of that.
“It’s going to impact us greatly, because we had to hold those rooms for a year,” Greenwood said. “All the people we turned away went and got rooms elsewhere, and we’re sitting with empty rooms like all the other hotels in Salisbury.”
Both Osterweil and Greenwood said hotel directors are doing everything they can to book the unused rooms.
The website for the Charlotte tourism authority, www.charlottesgotalot.com, still lists more than a dozen hotels with availability during the event, including those in Salisbury.
Contact reporter Karissa Minn at 704-797-4222.
Twitter: twitter.com/postcopolitics
Facebook: facebook.com/ Karissa.SalisburyPost
Why would ANYONE go?
What? Are they going to sit around and wildly cheer for four more years of even more destruction, poverty, and general misery??
Do they require reservations for a 1-hour stay?
The Democrats in Congress are skipping the Convention, Romney is way ahead in donations, no hotel rooms are being reserved and yet the Kenyan is still 50-50 in the polls.
Something isn’t right.
This is understandable. People tend to jump OFF a sinking ship not onto it.
Could it be that the attendees will be staying in the OWS tent city outside the convention center?
I bet abortions will be way up in the area.
My thoughts also. The polls are propaganda.
This is strange. But it’s probably costly to attend one of these gigs and who has money anymore. It’s mostly teachers usually, but aren’t most teachers just starting back at school? Seems later than usual to hold a convention.
Yeah. This seems like a non-story, except for the sentence near the end that refers to hotels actually in Charlotte. Strange.....
I though all of womanhood would be rushing to NC to get free mammograms and abortions and their share of obama’s stash..
I guess the DumboCraps will have to cancel their coronation without the threat of a hurricane. Maybe the Tea Party should have a convention in Salisbury at the same time as the DNC Convention - would be funny if the turnout was greater.
Think about who voted for him the last time. Those who voted for him because he's black will still vote for him because he's still black. No change there.
Those who voted vor him because he promised to steal for them (welfare parasites, government workers and union do-nothings) have gotten an even bigger share of the hard working taxpayers stolen loot. They love him more than ever. The only change there is that he exceeded their expectations
The leftist wackjobs who hate success in others see that he too hates success ("You didn't build that.") so they're going to vote for him again.
The problem isn't 0bama, it's about half of our fellow citizens who are too lazy and too cowardly to steal on their own, and who have a bone deep sense of entitlement. You work and they're entitled to the fruits of your labor (in their minds and in the minds of the government) and their votes count the same as yours. Personally I think the only people who should be allowed to vote are those who actually pay taxes.
...or maybe if the Romney campaign paid up front for a mess of rooms in the area from its vast war chest and made them available to Tea partiers...
Local hotels see few reservations from Democratic National Convention
Check the hotels that charge rates by the hour.
Rush touched on this yesterday. He said our country could survive 4 more years of Obama, but "can it survive four more years of those who voted for Obama?"
Leni
What if the libtards gave a DNC and nobody came?
Oops. Looks like that nasty rumor circulating through the DNC about the Emperor not wearing clothes is starting to dampen their enthusiasm.
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