Events leave no room at region’s inns

The convergence of Hoopfest, Ironman and the Far West Regional Youth Soccer Championships is creating “perfect storm” conditions in the lodging industry, tourism officials say. Most of the 10,000 hotel rooms and campground spots in Spokane and Kootenai counties were snapped up months ago during a blizzard of reservations by athletes and their families. Last-minute travelers looking for rooms in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene this week are finding few available. Front-desk clerks are telling them to keep on driving – to Sandpoint, or Ritzville or the Silver Valley, where vacancy signs are still lit up on hotels and motels. “I was trying to help a gentleman in the lobby find a room for the night. The closest opening was in Ritzville,” said Rita Santillanes, who owns two Best Western Peppertree Inns. Her hotel near the Spokane airport is full of Hoopfest contenders. “It’s our No. 1 occupancy weekend,” Santillanes said. The Liberty Lake Best Western also is full. Some guests are there for Ironman, a triathlon that takes place Sunday in Coeur d’Alene. Others are playing in the youth soccer championships, a six-day tournament that wraps up Saturday. Bob and Martha Hermann, tourists driving from Glacier National Park to Seattle, considered themselves fortunate to find a hotel room in Coeur d’Alene on Tuesday night. But they paid premium prices. “It was $121 for a standard room,” Bob Hermann said. “I thought it would be about $70.” The three sporting events will bring an estimated 37,000 spectators and athletes to the region, for an economic impact of $37 million, according to the Spokane Regional Sports Commission. Sports travelers spend about $110 per day on lodging, food and shopping, according to past commission surveys. But athletes aren’t the only guests in town. Spokane hotels also are playing host to 800 outdoor writers and 2,500 school officials in three separate conferences this week. “We’ve been full since Friday, and we’re full through the weekend. We’re full for 11 days straight,” said Ron Anderson, general manager of the 400-room Red Lion Hotel at the Park. “This usually doesn’t happen.” Spokane County’s hotel occupancy rate is 95 percent or greater through the weekend, estimates Anderson, who also is president of the Spokane Regional Hotel/Motel Association. Every hotel he knows of is booked. A hotline for room vacancies in Spokane, 1-888-SPOKANE, listed just two dozen openings on Tuesday. Kootenai County is in a similar position, said Christina Hatfield, vice president of tourism for the Coeur d’Alene Area Chamber of Commerce. A chamber e-mail to 60 hotels and campgrounds this week turned up only a handful of vacancies. And most were only for a single night, she said. “We ran into this last year with Ironman and Hoopfest on the same weekend,” Hatfield said. “People are calling us on their cell phones, saying, ‘We’re coming through. Why aren’t there any rooms available?’ We’re referring them to the Silver Valley and Sandpoint.” Rooms are so tight that some participants in the Far West Regional Youth Soccer Championship are staying in Colfax, Ritzville, Sandpoint and Kellogg. The event matches 240 youth teams from 14 Western states, including Alaska and Hawaii. Some teams didn’t qualify for the championship until Memorial Day weekend, which made it hard to find lodging, said Jan Neumann, project manager for the Spokane Regional Sports Commission. “Originally, we thought we might have to go as far away as Moses Lake and the Tri-Cities,” Neumann said. But the commission staff kept track of hotel cancellations from teams that didn’t qualify and was able to accommodate most players within a 1½-hour drive, she said Barbara Fimberz and Nancy Cunningham ended up at Templin’s Resort in Post Falls. The women, both from the Phoenix area, have 16-year-old sons who play on the same soccer team. Their families made reservations back in April, but still have a 40-minute drive to the Spokane Polo Club in Airway Heights, where some of the games take place. “We used the same travel agent that Far West used, but it was slim pickings,” Cunningham said. At the Travelodge in Spokane, Assistant General Manager Meredith Rainville is juggling departing soccer teams with guests arriving for Hoopfest, some of whom made reservations 12 months in advance. The 80-room lodge has been full since last weekend, and Rainville is turning away people who want to get on the 20-person waiting list. She was frank when asked what advice she has for incoming travelers without a place to stay. “Camp,” she said. But campgrounds aren’t a sure bet either, as Brad Williams of Sacramento found out. Williams, who is competing in Sunday’s Ironman, made reservations nine months ago at the Robin Hood Campground, a small RV park near Ironman’s starting line in City Park. Three weeks ago, Williams called to confirm his reservation. The campground no longer existed; it had been razed for a parking lot. Williams and his mom, who came to cheer him on, found a private house to rent instead. It was advertised through the Ironman Web site. Many of Williams’ friends are renting homes this year. It’s less expensive than booking a week of hotel rooms, which can run $140 per night, he said. The overflow of tourists is welcome in outlying communities, where hotels and motels are filling up as well. As of Wednesday, the La Quinta in Sandpoint had just one room available on Friday night: the $169 honeymoon suite, with a king-sized bed and jetted tub. The Super 8 Motel in Kellogg still had rooms this weekend. But guest service representative Pat Holzhauer never fails to give sage advice to drop-in travelers. “You need to plan ahead,” she tells them. “We have activities going on here, and we fill up on weekends.”