Courtesy Discover Saratoga
By Darryl Leggieri
As we say farewell to 2022, we can reflect on what a great year it was for leisure travel and in the meetings industry.
Leisure travel was anchored by many of our major attractions and cultural institutions, such as the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Live Nation, Saratoga Casino Hotel, Universal Preservation Hall, Caffe Lena, National Museum of Racing, and the historic Saratoga Race Course. The track’s summer meet eclipsed one million in paid attendance for the seventh consecutive year.
As for meetings and events, the return of business was swift. Not even rising costs, staffing shortages and a possible recession changed meeting planner confidence. While we are still below pre-pandemic booking levels, we saw that our leads and bookings volume were on the rise.
When we look at the numbers for our lodging partners, there was much to celebrate. Through November of 2022 year to year, Saratoga County saw steady growth over 2021. Over the previous 12 months, demand increased by 14.8 percent, occupancy was up 12.9 percent, average daily rate was up 11 percent, and revenue per available room was up 25.3 percent. Since group business is not entirely back, leisure business literally saved the day.
The occupancy and average daily rate that our lodging partners were able to command shows a strong return to business, and breaking records for revenue in many cases.
Looking ahead, the pace of recovery can now be described as a resurgence. So, when we look ahead to 2023, we will talk about growth, and not recovery. This could be the year that the industry surpasses 2019 events volume and just keeps going from there.
Travel is back, especially in the meetings and events business. Organizations and businesses discovered us for the first time and are realizing the ease of getting to our destination.
Additionally, business leaders understand that holding events in our destination can be cost effective versus flying to other first-tier locations. Our planners talk about unique destinations, they want different. They would rather explore smaller towns and regions. Our thriving downtown, unique venues, and our wide-open spaces inspire creativity and innovation in a welcoming atmosphere, which creates team building opportunities. Meetings build the bonds that are so important to driving corporate culture, sustaining the health of an organization, and accomplish their mission.
Clients are also more aware of sustainability, with a greater emphasis on groups reducing their carbon footprint, minimizing waste, and focusing more on traveler well being—both mental and physical. Wellness classes, spa services, outdoor pursuits in our pristine parks, and the healing attributes of our natural springs are a perfect fit to find personal balance. We’ve always promoted these value propositions, but now it’s a new talking point since COVID has retreated.
We can help create events with a deeper purpose. This is where Discover Saratoga comes in. The mission of the Saratoga Convention and Tourism Bureau, operating under the Discover Saratoga brand, is to deliver a positive impact on the local economy by promoting and marketing Saratoga Springs and Saratoga County as a world-class destination for meetings, conventions, and groups.
We serve as a hub that connects visitors with local venues, and the establishments managed by our 500-plus members. As a key economic development engine for our community, we drive millions of tourism and event dollars into our local economy. This makes our community stronger, helping our families, our friends, and our neighbors.
In order to stay competitive, one challenge that we still face is workforce development. With the high volume of travelers enjoying our destination, worker shortages are straining the ability of the hospitality industry to keep up. Hotels, restaurants, retail, and small businesses in general continue to struggle to hire enough people. We support eliminating caps on the national H2-B visa program and creating more workforce housing in our local communities as a start.
If we are to succeed in creating, sustaining, and retaining a viable workforce that can support the current and future needs of our local community, we must continue to approach workforce development as a major priority.
With a solid foundation of group business, and community events on the books again, we think this year will be strong. Leisure travelers will continue to look for Saratoga as a respite since we fully expect to be 100 percent open again.
Growth in 2023 is not guaranteed, we will have to compete for it and earn our way to success. But I am confident in our team, and our resilient community.