VIRGINIA BEACH, Va — As Labor Day approaches, city leaders in Virginia Beach are keeping an eye on the number of hotel stays bringing tourism into the resort area.
During Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Vice Mayor Rosemary Wilson brought up the concern, saying that she understands some hotels experienced a 20% drop in recent years.
John Zirkle, President of the Virginia Beach Hotel Association said, “Hotels aren’t normally down 10, 15, 20% in July.” He added, “To be down that, is a substantial hit. Just figure if a hotel did a million dollars in revenue, and they’re down 20%, that’s $200,000.”
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Zirkle believes rainy weather in July hurt business, and he feels the economy is playing a role. Though he explained they’re seeing a trend of visitors booking shorter stays at higher-end hotels.
“In ‘21, ‘22, we had record years in Virginia Beach,” Zirkle said. “’23 was also a very good year. We got used to always having record year after year, and it’s really hard to do that three, four, five years in a row. So this year, I think we had a little pullback with the economy.”
Councilmember Worth Remick is still hopeful since there are quite a few events still to come to the Oceanfront this year including Something in the Water in October.
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“When tourism is down, it does affect restaurants, retailers, and other businesses here at the Oceanfront and also across the City, so that’s disheartening, of course,” Remick stated. “But we’re going to change our game plan to a certain degree with advertising. We change it according to the market. Overall, I’m relatively happy with the season, but it’s not good news to hear that.”
A spokesperson for the Virginia Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau said they’ve implemented a new advertising campaign including the slogan, “Happiness is…” in cities like Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Sometime in the next few weeks, they expect to present data to City Council.
Zirkle says that all Virginia Beach residents should care about how tourism is faring, partly because “Tourism saves every household $1,754 in property taxes,” according to studies done by the City. He added that having year-round events such as those at the Sportsplex has been very helpful.
