DAYTONA BEACH — Despite sunny weather that offered postcard-worthy scenes for motorcycling on State Road A1A, hoteliers in Volusia County reported a mix of encouraging and disappointing business results from the 77th Annual Bike Week that concluded on Sunday.
“From what I’m hearing, overall, the event was down just a little compared with last year,” said Bob Davis, president of the Lodging & Hospitality Association of Volusia County. “I think the series of severe storms up north had a part in that.”
Among the hotels experiencing declines in occupancy and Average Daily Room rate were properties owned and operated by Ormond Beach-based Elite Hospitality Inc.
The company’s roster of area hotels consists of the Best Western Castillo Del Sol in Ormond Beach; Best Western Plus International Speedway; Hampton Inn by Hilton Daytona Speedway Airport; and the Hilton Garden Inn at Daytona Beach International Airport.
“The Speedway hotels saw a large decline in occupancy and average rate due to a rise in supply with two new hotels that opened within the last year,” Elite’s CEO Manoj Bhoola said by email, referencing additional competition from the newly opened Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott at One Daytona, the entertainment and retail development across the street from Daytona International Speedway, and the nearby WoodSpring Suites Daytona Speedway.
“There is only a limited demand for rooms by the Speedway, which is also expecting an additional two new hotels to open this year,” Bhoola said. “The weather was great, which helped the last-minute decision makers, but the overall special event is declining as the city and county are focusing on year-round family business and the Ocean Center instead of the essential special events.”
Bike Week yielded better results at hotels owned and managed by Ormond Beach-based Premier Resorts & Management. Premier properties include Hilton Garden Inn; Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites; Best Western Daytona Inn Seabreeze; and Ocean Breeze Club Hotel, all in Daytona Beach; as well as the Holiday Inn Express & Suites, Daytona Beach Shores.
Premier sold-out all its available rooms for the 10-day period at all five of its oceanfront hotels, except for Tuesday, said Domien Takx, the company’s vice president of operations. That was harder to do than in previous years, he said.
“It took more effort and time to ultimately fill all our hotel rooms,” Takx said by email. “We needed to discount more on the shoulder days (Monday through Wednesday), but were able to make up the difference on the two bookend weekends.”
The news was upbeat at the 744-room Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront Resort, the area’s largest hotel.
“Hilton Daytona had a good Bike Week period, seeing a reasonable lift over last year's event in rate and we were sold out 100 percent all 10 nights same as last year,” Jim Berkley, the hotel’s general manager, said by email.
At the 91-room Sun Viking Lodge in Daytona Beach Shores, numbers were slightly down compared with last year’s event, said Gary Brown, the hotel’s longtime owner.
“We were down about 2 percent this past weekend in occupancy and also down about 2 percent in our ADR,” Brown said. “For the week, we were actually down 6 percent in occupancy, but we were up about 1.5 percent in ADR. Overall, it’s just slightly below what we did last year.”