Newport hotel owners frustrated with lack of guidance

NEWPORT — Hotel owners and operators say they need a target date from state officials so they can begin booking out-of-state guests who won’t face a 14-day quarantine upon arrival.

“Without a target date, we can’t market and plan,” said Kate DeCosta, chief operating officer for the Newport Experience, which operates the OceanCliff Hotel. “Without a date, we can’t start booking rooms. Every day we can’t do that, we are held back from recapturing lost revenues. It’s a double whammy now.”

“I’m hoping it’s the first week of June that the quarantine is lifted, but by July 1 at the latest,” said Walter Andrews, general manager of the Newport Marriott, the largest hotel in the city with 320 rooms. “It’s crucial we have a date. I can’t make a move without direction from the state.”

“We need a date to go by, so we can start marketing,” said Rocky Kempenaar, who owns four hotels in Middletown: Residence Inn by Marriott, Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton, Homewood Suites by Hilton and Howard Johnson by Wyndham. All together, the hotels have more than 400 rooms and at peak season there are better than 100 employees, he said.

“It has to be done soon,” Kempenaar said. “If we have a good July, August and September, it would make all the difference in the world. I think the goal of everyone in the business is to get the quarantine lifted so we can start making reservations and stop the bleeding. We need to make enough money this year to just pay our bills and get us to next summer.”

 “It’s a problem that we don’t have a targeted date,” said Colin Kane, co-owner of the new Hammetts Hotel on America’s Cup Avenue that was scheduled to open Memorial Day, but that date was pushed to mid-June because of the pandemic.

“We are all shooting in the dark right now,” he said.

 “It’s not just for the hotels, it’s for the marinas as well,” Kane said. “We can’t take a marina guest from out-of-state for more than 24 hours. We’re all looking for guidance from the governor’s office that says, ‘Here’s the target for lifting the quarantine.’”

“Even if the target was that we are not going to open up all summer, at least it would be guidance,” he said. If that were the case, he might not open the hotel this summer at all, he said.

“I’m hoping we will open — I’m pretty confident we will, but we have held off hiring,” Kane added.

Hoteliers depend on out-of-state visitors, who make up 84% of their guests. Rhode Island residents account for only 16% of all lodging booked in Newport on an annual basis, said Evan Smith, president and CEO of Discover Newport.

 “Hotels cannot make a living on that 16%,” he said.

 “People who live in Rhode Island don’t vacation in Rhode Island,” DeCosta agreed.

Visitors from four states — Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey — account for about 50% of all lodging booked in Newport, Smith said.

 In 2019, 17% of all reservations were international, with Canada, Europe and Asia being the top three markets, he said.

The remaining 17% came from a wide variety of other states, but mid- Atlantic states like Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia rank highest among them, he said.

Currently by the executive order of Gov. Gina Raimondo, Rhode Island hotels and rental companies must inform their out-of-state guests — except for those here on business — they must self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.

“Newport is in competition with other vacation destinations in New England and the Northeast, and if those destinations can begin booking rooms before Newport, Newport will suffer,” said DeCosta at Newport Experience, which also operates Regatta Place, the Goat Island Marina, the Schooner Aurora, Stone House in Little Compton and the Safari Room Restaurant at OceanCliff in addition to the OceanCliff Hotel.

“There are people who want to drive to a regional vacation destination and stay in a hotel, and we have to start capturing them now,” she said. “How long can this go on? People making decisions at the state level have to be aware of how this is affecting business owners.”

There are 18 hotels and motels in Newport, 83 bed & breakfast inns and six timeshare locations, according to data from Smith.

 At those Newport locations, there are 2,361 total rooms that bring in $130 million in revenue annually, Smith said. If all the cottage rentals and short-term rentals booked through firms like Airbnb, VRBO, Homeaway and others are included, the total annual revenues are over $200 million, Smith said.

There are an additional 1,578 total hotel, motel and bed & breakfast rooms in Middletown, according to the data.

Of all the lodging establishments, 80% elected to close down when the pandemic restrictions began in March, Smith said.

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@Photo Caption:The Newport Marriott has remained open during the coronavirus pandemic, but room occupancy has ranged from just 2% to 8%, according to the hotel’s general manager. [Newport Daily News, file]

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