Business

Holiday Inn Express open for business in Marietta

MARIETTA -- Whether it's for an overnight trip or a week-long stay, Marietta is home to a new hotel on Pike Street which officially opened Tuesday night.

The Holiday Inn Express and Suites is the sixth new construction since 2001 to offer lodging in Marietta. Five new hotels have joined the ranks since 2009 as the oil and gas industry boomed in the area.

With that rise in out-of town workers reserving extended stays in local hotels, the bed tax to city and county coffers offered extra funds for tourism marketing and general funds. However after the boom's peak in 2014, revenues declined. But city officials and hoteliers alike believe the market is beginning to stabilize now, with revenues around what was reached in 2012.

"We're so excited to be here and already have had bookings both last night and tonight," said Christine Jendrusik, general manager of the new hotel, as she gave Jeri Knowlton, executive director of the Marietta-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau, a tour of the hotel Wednesday. "I've never had a meeting room this large, or such an open concept with amenities for technology in the other hotels I've managed. I spoke with a couple of the guests last night and they loved this."

Work on the new hotel began in the spring of 2015 with raising the foundation above the Ohio River flood plain. Then, for the past 13 months, construction of the newest design of Holiday Inns formed across the street from the Ford dealership.

"I didn't want to build to the old design when the new one was just coming out," said Josh Baltes, managing member of the hotel. "We have a brand loyalty that expects the newest amenities and the most connectivity throughout the hotel."

Baltes said his rationale for building a new structure in Marietta focuses on the wide market of travelers to the area.

"There's more to this than just oil and gas," he explained. "There's the college, the hospital, festivals, the arts and the beauty of a historic river town."

Baltes said as a hotel broker he has been involved in the lodging industry in Marietta since the 1990s and those constants have remained the same despite the rise and decline of the oil and gas industry in the area.

The CVB has felt the largest repercussions of the past two years' decline in oil and gas in Washington County, as its budget is predominately based on the city and county bed tax to lodging operations in the area.

From 2002 to the industry's peak in 2014, revenues from the 6 percent bed tax in Marietta rose from $315,008.72 to $1.12 million.

"But then we started to see that boom drop off in 2015," said Bill Dauber, the city's assistant safety-service director. "With the loss of revenues, the city had to reevaluate how much of the bed tax could be passed through to the CVB."

Through 2014, the city split the 6 percent tax evenly with the CVB, though only required by Ohio Revised Code to provide a minimum of 1.5 percent while retaining the other three-quarters of the revenue.

"When the bed tax tanked we took a hit to the general fund," said Dauber. "And so City Council adjusted the split in 2015 to a 3.5 percent city take and 2.5 percent CVB pass through. Then again for 2016 they adjusted it to a 4 percent city take and 2 percent to the CVB."

Neither Dauber nor Knowlton expect revenues to fall again next year and they are once again projecting their budgets for 2017 based on numbers from 2012.

"We're looking at occupancy hovering between 60 and 65 percent all year. That's where we sat prior to the oil and gas bump in 2012," explained Knowlton. "I think next year will be flat again without major fluctuation."

Knowlton said the steady stream of weekend travelers Marietta sees from Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Michigan, Kentucky and Pennsylvania have recently been stretching their travels farther south thanks to lower gasoline prices.

"People have the chance to travel farther because now they can afford places like southern beaches," she explained. "But we still do have the constant business travel to our area, it just doesn't seem as high when you look at the percentages because more than 250 rooms have been added to our market in the past couple years."

But with annual events like the Ohio River Sternwheel Festival, Riverfront Roar, high school and college homecomings and Marietta College's spring graduation to bolster the fluctuation of family reunions, destination weddings, business conferences and weekend travelers, Knowlton's outlook for the coming years for the lodging industry in Marietta, and in turn tourism, is still bright.

"It's critically important for our hotels to keep up with the latest trends and the Holiday Inn Express and Suites is showing how to do that," she said. "Millennials are beginning to really travel to destinations like ours to take in the history but also they expect to stay in a hotel that has connectivity in every room, places to charge on pretty much every surface and an open coffee shop or club type feel to the community spaces."