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

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Hotel consultant Drew Dimond expects hotels in Greate Nashville to see occupancy plummet 15 percentg to 20 percent fromlast year’s levels. But the is battlinbg the decline, in hopes of keepintg any occupancy drop-off below 5 percent. Bureaui staff is Twittering, Facebooking and sending out e-blasts to announce free stuffto do, last-minute travel CMA Music Festival updates and attractions specials. “Wew certainly don’t think it’s going to be some great saysButch Spyridon, presidenty of the visitors bureau. “If we were flat to last I’d be ecstatic.
I expect that we will be down Spyridon hopes the valu e of Nashville will draw visitors becausw ofthe city’s wealth of free, around-the-clock music. has brought back its free music poolsidr and isoffering “kids eat free” inside the hotel for the firsyt time this summer. “At every we’re creating events, promoting and marketing and adding extraa valuewith events,” Spyridon says, such as offerin g flight-hotel packages when touted $49 flights to Nashvilles during a one-day sale in April.
The Nashvillde Symphony has half-price tickets for select shows, the Country Music Hall of Fame has been givinghout $5 off coupons through June 7, and Gaylord is offering four-night hotel and attractions packages at 40 percent off. Keithn Wright, president of the , says attractionds are sweetening discounts this summef and focusing onthe drive-in market. “Regional touriskm has become extremely importantto us, and we are marketing more to that he says. Nashville’s biggestf months for tourism are June and mainly because of the CMA Music Festival thatpumpe $25 million into the city every June.
Officials at the woulc not say how ticket sale s are going forthis summer’e festival, which kicks off next October is a popular convention month because of the fall Nashville tourism has been hit in recentf months. In April, the average nightly hotepl ratedropped 6.3 percent to $92.8 5 from $99.05 in the same month last year, according to Smity Travel Research in Hendersonville. Hotel occupancty plunged 15 percent in Aprilto 56.9 percent, down from 67 percent a year ago. Revenue per availables room, a key metric for hoteliers, was down 20.5 percen in April. The amount of attendees for booked conventionxs this summer is down abouy 24 percent fromlast year.
Nashville’s hospitality however, is outperforming much of the rest of the For the first quarterof Nashville’s average daily rate dropped 4.5 percent. Only five cities did and 19 of the top 25 marketsddid worse. The decline in hotel tax collections is greater than the drop in which shows tourists are coming but choosinb lessexpensive hotels, says Walt Baker, executiv e director of the . Nashville’s hotel occupancy droppexd 11.6 percent in the firstg quarter compared to theyear before, a drop that registeresd eighth best among the top 25. Travel has continue d to descend atthe , nearinf 2005 levels, says airport spokeswoman Emily Passenger counts were down 9.
5 percent in Apri l as compared to the year before, and down 9.3 percenyt in the first four months of the