Ouachita Parish sees growing demand for hotels

There are three new hotels under construction throughout Ouachita Parish, and if you ask Monroe-West Monroe Convention & Visitors Bureau President and CEO Alana Cooper, it’s for good reason.

“It gives you more supply to meet the demand,” she said.

That demand is signified by a 73.1 percent occupancy rate for the parish in 2014 — an eight percent jump over the previous year — that Cooper said is coming from several places.

“Some corporate, some interstate travelers, some sports and bus groups,” she said. “That’s where we saw the increase.”

While some might worry that three new hotels could saturate the demand and spark a decrease in occupancy rates, Cooper said she is working hard to prevent that.

“I think at first it may (decrease), but we’ve got enough demand right now that we’ll probably grow a little bit,” she said. “Usually when we have new hotels, they start off very well. For the first few years, they run much higher than our average. People want a nice, clean room, and they can get that from a very affordable price to a very luxurious price.”

Nash Patel, a principal in Southern Hospitality, said some of the construction is due to aging facilities.

“The demand has been really good,” he said. “Some (facilities) go out, and that’s been a plus for creating a need.”

Patel’s company is constructing two hotels in the parish. The 87-room Hampton Inn and Suites in Monroe is a replacement for an aged-out facility, he said, but the Home2 Suites in West Monroe is a new hotel.

“The Home2 Suites is an extended stay,” he said. “It’s a niche market that’s not being served right now.”

The third hotel being constructed is a La Quinta Inn and Suites in West Monroe.

Cooper said though more hotels are being built, the community still has a demand that isn’t being served.

“There’s definitely still a need for a convention hotel,” she said. “Our convention market has decreased during this time frame. We hope that we’ll see that increase.”

Cooper said hotel operators throughout the parish are seeing their rooms filled on weekdays and asked the CVB, the marketing arm for the parish responsible for bringing events, to pursue more weekend visitors.

“The hotels have asked us to focus on the weekend market, and that’s sports and leisure,” she said. “We’re doing much more on the leisure side, trying to promote the weekend business. We’re now hosting the Louisiana State Games. We had originally 10 events, and we’ve got 13 this year. Those are the type of things we’re doing that are bringing in that weekend business.”

The CVB is funded by a special hotel tax, which Cooper uses to market the area and put revenue back into the parish.

“We’re doing some new marketing strategies,” she said. “We do some social media targeting. When we know we have certain events like Mardi Gras or Christmas, we’ll do specific marketing in Jackson, Mississippi, up to Memphis, Tennessee, over to Little Rock, Arkansas, and even over to east Texas. You have to be out there and you have to be there often. We’re doing a few targeted campaigns this year for that leisure market.”

The key to success is making sure everyone is on the same page, she said.

“We have a good relationship with the hotels,” Cooper said. “They’ve worked with us. We still conduct meetings quarterly. We’re trying to make sure we’re networking and getting together. When we had the State H.O.G. Rally, we met about that. Anytime we’re doing citywide events like that, we bring the hotels together to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

Follow @Kaleb_Causey on Twitter.