Demand for hotel rooms, employment up over national rates
by Lindsey Robbins Staff Writer
Anthony Castellano/The Gazette
Lori Epp (left), marketing director for Wisp Resort at Deep Creek Lake, chats with Lisa Dennis, events director for the Greater Ocean City Chamber of Commerce, during an opening reception for the state tourism conference Wednesday aboard the Catherine Marie at Annapolis City Dock. The conference runs through today.
Demand for Maryland hotel rooms this year through September has exceeded the national average by 1.5 percentage points, growing 8.9 percent from the same time last year.
Margot Amelia, Maryland tourism director, reported the promising data during the Maryland Tourism & Travel Summit at the Loews Annapolis Hotel on Thursday. The conference is hosted by the Maryland Tourism Council, Maryland Tourism Education Foundation and Maryland Office of Tourism Development.
The hotel is a Maryland Green Travel partner, which is a state initiative highlighting hospitality businesses engaged in green practices.
Maryland’s hotel industry also netted 13,000 new jobs from 2009 to 2010, she said. Overall, the state’s tourism employment increased 5.4 percent, compared with 0.7 percent nationally.
“Our industry is adding new employees, more so than others in the nation,” Amelia said. Sales tax revenue from the tourism industry also declined less than others in its tax code, with a 1.3 percent decrease compared with an average 2.5 percent drop. Amelia emphasized that the industry must grow that revenue by more than 3 percent to apply for additional funding for the tourism office.
