By Darryl Leggieri 

With 2023 in the rear-view mirror, let us take a moment to reflect on what a great year it was-at least in leisure travel, and the meetings industry!

Leisure travel was anchored by many of our major attractions and cultural institutions, such as the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Casino Hotel, Saratoga National Historic Park, Universal Preservation Hall, Caffe Lena, National Museum of Racing, and the historic Saratoga Race Course. The track’s summer meet exceeded one million in paid attendance once again.

As for meetings and events, the return of business was fruitful. Not even rising costs, staffing shortages and a possible recession changed meeting planner confidence.

When we look at the numbers for our lodging partners, through November of 2023 year over year, Saratoga County saw steady positive growth. Over the previous 12 months, demand increased by .5 percent, Occupancy was up .8 percent, Average Daily Rate (ADR) was up 5.9 percent, and Revenue Per Available Room (REVPAR) was up 6.7 percent. 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:

As we start the new year, we’re absolutely delighted and honored to be designated as the official Tourism Promotion Agency (TPA) for Saratoga County. We are excited to embark on this journey to showcase the unparalleled beauty, culture, and experiences that our county has to offer. It’s an exciting time to be taking over the tourism responsibilities because travel is back. Strong domestic leisure travel demand has been the driving force in our post-pandemic comeback, and we expect it to continue and be resilient in the coming year. More authentic travel experiences will continue to gain share. Visitors want to see the real side of a destination. Wellness, unique rural settings, heritage tourism, and experiential travel (festivals, events, food and craft beverages). They want their own experiences, finding those unique Instagrammable moments. 

By Todd Shimkus, CCE

Every month, the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce publishes what we call the “Insider’s Report,” a collection of current statistics and trends which tell us how Saratoga’s economy is performing. While the name suggests one thing, the reality is that anyone who is interested in this exclusive information can subscribe to receive the report. 

The Insider’s Report is now among our most popular emails with thousands of opens every month and an ever-increasing subscriber base, partly because it is the only place you can now get all this information in an easy-to-read format. Here is what subscribers learned in our most recent edition:

Saratoga County sales tax collections were up 7.6 percent January through November in 2023 versus the same time in 2022, from $144.6 million a year ago to $155.7 million this year. The City of Saratoga Springs has also collected 7.1 percent more in 2023 versus 2022, up from $15.2 million in 2022 to $16.27 million in 2023. These increases in sales tax collections have remained steady all year even as inflation has decreased showing that our local economy continues to expand.

Local hotels across Saratoga County reported RevPAR of $107.61 through the first eleven months of 2023, up 6.7 percent from 2022 when RevPAR was $100.81. Overall, hotel revenues for the first eleven months of this year are up 6.4 percent even as demand is up just .5 percent. The average daily rate for a room in Saratoga County has been up in all eleven months of 2023 showing a willingness of consumers and visitors to spend more to stay in Saratoga County.

By Renee Walrath 

In 2024, hiring trends will shift as organizations adapt to a changing global workforce and several key themes emerge, offering employers and job seekers a positive outlook. While 2023 started with massive layoffs and continued with that trend throughout the year to cut costs, the hiring trends for 2024 indicate a renewed sense of optimism. 

Google research shows that 39 percent of hiring leaders said they plan to increase their financial commitment toward hiring in 2024, and 70 percent of surveyed U.S. job seekers were somewhat or very confident about their prospects of finding new jobs.

As economies rebound and industries rebuild, companies prepare for growth, creating a heightened demand for skilled professionals. This positive outlook is demonstrated by increased job opportunities across various sectors, creating a favorable environment for job seekers.

Throughout 2023, we’ve seen many companies requiring workers to go back to the office and anticipate more companies to do the same in 2024, with flexibility for remote work on an as-needed basis. Many technological roles will remain remote. While working remote during and post the pandemic, companies noted that Millennials and especially Gen Z were lacking mentor and coaching since they were not working in an office. For us Baby Boomers, it was important for us to learn from our mentors and peers in the office to advance our career. It’s much easier to ask a question when a colleague is sitting right next to you. Listening to other peers in the office discuss a work problem and solving it is how others learn their industry quicker.  

BY PETE BARDUNIAS

Hopefully 2024 is the year that we stop letting the urbanists define what a downtown is in Saratoga County. Many communities seem to look at their development options and needs through the lens of Saratoga Springs: a centralized mixed-use business district with housing, restaurants, mass transit options, sidewalks, and more, with decades of planning and development along the way.  In Saratoga Springs this works very well, and all of us who live in this County are fortunate to have such a city to attract the masses for racing season (which this year will include two major meets), or for the arts, cultural festivals, and attractions such as the City Center, the sprawling Spa Park, SPAC, and Universal Preservation Hall.  But should we aspire to do this everywhere?

Take Clifton Park. Decades of planning have been incorporated in developing the form-based code that guides planning for the town, especially in the vicinity of Exit 9.  The same thing has been unfolding in Malta in recent years. Yet as readers of this publication know, those towns are very different in design and character from Saratoga.  

Is that a bad thing? Some people would say so. In fact, many communities in our county are often derided as being examples of sprawl, or visionless, or even inconsequential, because they don’t match the description that is considered ideal.  

Many communities struggle to find identity when identity is staring them in the face. Do we have to define our downtown in the traditional, textbook sense, or can we just accept these communities as they are? Clifton Park’s town center area, as it’s more frequently called, has some of the most wonderful places to shop, eat, work, walk around and recreate in the entire county.  The new Town Center Park is adjacent to the business district. There’s more to do just west of Exit 9 than in many of the more traditional-looking downtowns in the Capital Region. Just to the east, Halfmoon is now developing a similar segment of town which will look very much like a town center or downtown area. What about the Town of Milton? Milton is a great community with a unique town center. Forget about definitions; stand by the Town Hall, and go for a walk. It’s interesting how much you can find within a short distance. There are shops, stores (including the largest NAPA auto parts store in the USA), some places to eat or get ice cream, and a very pleasant town park with trails, all accessible from nearby residential housing of different income levels.  And there is an extensive network of sidewalks.   No one would ever dare call this a Downtown, yet this section of the Town of Milton contains pretty much everything one would want in a downtown.  It’s just packaged differently.  

By Mark Shaw

I guess the recession is cancelled. Who knows, right? The world seems a little upside down, but as everyone knows life continues to go on. What we are seeing in the technology space is very interesting as we have, for most intents and purposes, been immune to the economic tides of layoffs and downsizing. This did not hold true in 2023, and so far, 2024 is starting off with a bang. Over 24 tech firms have already had layoffs in 11 days into this year. The big companies have over-hired during the good times and are trimming now. Technology is often the canary in the coal mine. What happens there flows down to the more stable and long-term organizations in healthcare and manufacturing. 

What does this mean to you and your business? It means that the pendulum is swinging again. The rise of good economic times buoyed by the funds from PPP, EIDL, and for some, the ERC (All government programs through COVID-19) are starting to come to an end. The funds have been used and now we are back to equilibrium. As you look over your staff and study your business trends, you might also find yourself needing to reduce staffing to keep moving forward. 

One area everyone worried about making any cuts is typically in the technology area. These people have special skills that are often, in our area, hard to find. You trust your IT person to be making good choices, to be protecting you from threats, and most importantly to just make “IT” work.

But what do you do when the realization that your beloved IT person is moving on to another role, perhaps in another state or country? What if that resource is unable to grow with the big plans you have made for success in 2024. What if they need some help because the day-to-day is burying them to the point their project timelines are slipping?