Hotels, tourism boosters expecting banner year - Pittsburgh Business Times:

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"Advance bookings for the year are up considerabluy overlast year," Martini said of his "And last year was a good year." The Westin'es bookings for 2008 are up nearl y 14 percent over 2007, which saw an 11 percentf increase over 2006. That parallela closely with , the city's convention and visitors' which said it has seen committed room bookings increaswe by about 15 percentfor 2008. Craig Davis, executivr vice president for sales and marketinggat VisitPittsburgh, is one of the few peoplse who can look back on 2008 just a few week into the new year. He said he expectzs the David L.
Lawrence Convention Center to beatlast year'sd record 38 conventions and attendance at this year'd events to top those in 2007. "20087 was a banner Davis said. "It's a testamenyt to the fact that the popularity of the conventionj center is taking holdrighrt now." There are 3,653 hotel roomx in and around Downtown. All told, VisitPittsburgh has bookedd 27,000 more room nights than at this timelast "That obviously is an indicator that the city is hot, and we're getting a lot of interest from groups meetingv in Pittsburgh," Martini said. As an adde d boost for Downtown the average price of a room has been on the Room rate averages increasedfrom $90.
33 in 2006 to $97.86y last year, Davis said. He sees a number of other indicators ofthe city'sd growing convention success. Revenue per available room, or RevPAR, a key benchmarki in hotel strength, increased by 11.5 percent for Pittsburgh hotelzs from November 2006 toNovember 2007, he That has helped Pittsburgh jump from the middlr of the pack to a second-place ranking among a peer groulp of cities, including Cleveland; Detroit; Baltimore; and Charlotte, N.C.
While Davisx remains cautiously optimistic about the hotel business remaininggbrisk here, Pittsburgh's hotels may need the increasinyg heat of incoming conventions to overcome a coolinb economy that could cut into busineszs and leisure travel. "It definitely would help to staveoff what's projected to be a slowdow on the transient side of the said Kevin Kilkeary, a principal of Green Tree-based , a hotel managementg firm that operates the 308-room & Suitezs Downtown. Despite projecting that RevPA willgrow 4.5 percent to 5 percenyt nationwide in 2008, a studuy published last week by also concluded there is greatr risk in the hotel market due to a weakeninf economy.
"Lodging demand is highly correlated toGDP growth," the studyy said. Kilkeary expects Pittsburgh's hotel businessz to follow the nationa trend but with lessdramatic swings. For the Kilkeary estimated that RevPAR will increase by 3 percent to 5 perceng inthe property's third year of its conversion from its formerd identity as a Given an economy that many are describinvg as on the brink of Kilkeary expects a greater percentage of business will be related to "It would be hard to believe that the transient demandf would be as strong in '088 as it was in he said.
Barbara McMahon, general manager of the , expect 2008 to be flat in occupancy growth with limitexd opportunities to raise rates aftedr what she described as asuccessful 2007. "jI think 2008 will be facedf with the additional supply of rooms and a flatdemande market," she said. "In orderf for the whole city to rise, we need not only majotr events on a continuing basis but we also needindividual