Resting uneasy

KENNEWICK — Nightly rates at the Bali Hi Motel in Richland are lower than eight years ago — even after an extensive remodeling and the addition of a free continental breakfast.

Independently owned motels and hotels are struggling to stay in business in the Tri-Cities since four top-name hotels, including a Hilton and Marriott, have opened in the last year.

The additional 400 rooms have glutted the market, forcing other hoteliers to drop prices and improve their properties to compete.

The winners are hotel customers who are getting new or freshly refurbished rooms with numerous amenities at deeply discounted rates. Rooms at some of the Tri-Cities newest hotels can be found on Internet discount sites for as little as $69 a night.

“We have to make sure our customers don’t have a complaint,” said Hemant Mistry, owner of the Bali Hi and three other small Tri-City motels. “Most of the time, they won’t complain, they just won’t come back.”

The number of guest rooms in the Tri-Cities has jumped 26 percent in 10 years to 3,364 rooms.

Hotel managers say there’s been no problem filling those rooms during the summer, but it makes the offseason more cutthroat.

Both the Best Western Pasco with 109 rooms and the Hilton Garden Inn with 120 rooms opened last winter, spreading business even thinner during the already slow season.

“In the 25 years I’ve worked in the Tri-Cities, I’ve never seen this much saturation in the market,” said Mark Blotz, manager of the Clover Island Inn in Kennewick.

“We’re all concerned,” said Brent Herring, sales manager for the Clarion Hotel in Richland. “Every night we are competing against 1,900 hotel rooms.”

Herring said occupancy in the hotel, which has undergone three name changes in four years, has been down more than 5 percent this year.

But David Deeney, general manager of the Hilton Garden Inn in Kennewick, said the Hilton’s rooms are being discounted by $30 to $40, depending on the night.

But he believes by the end of the year the Tri-Cities will see more room bookings.

“Nobody is getting incremental huge increases, but there is a larger volume coming into the area, so the new hotels being built are a timely thing,” he said.

Discounts by the new hotels are making it harder for the established ones to fill rooms.

Mark Kerber, general manager of the Holiday Inn Express, said, “We know it’s getting more competitive, but the Holiday Inn brand is strong enough to ride through economic downturn.”

Toby Olsen, a hotel consultant from Vancouver, Wash., said it may be harder to compete, but the Tri-City market is not overbuilt, just catching up.

“There were a lot of people looking at the Tri-Cities in 1998-1999 because the market was under built,” said Olsen, who is doing consulting work for the Clarion hotel in Richland.

He said the older properties are going to have to “up their game and make sure they are keeping up with the competition.”

The Clover Island Inn has undergone an intensive remodeling during the past two years and is offering lower rates, free Internet, a continental breakfast and new pillow-top mattresses in all the rooms.

“We have all the things the new guys have,” Blotz said.

And they’re adding more advertising along area highways.

Herring said the Clarion in Richland has introduced a new free hot breakfast program and is remodeling its six-story tower floor-by-floor. Business suites will offer large desks completely stocked down to paper clips, scissors and paper.

The hotel also is offering guests complimentary drinks in its lounge, which has been remodeled and now is non-smoking. The restaurant and its menu have been given an Italian makeover and a new name — The Tuscany Grill.

“It’s been a challenge and we had to re-evaluate everything we were doing, from selling and marketing to attracting the corporate business,” he said.

Even the small discount motels have had to make changes or lose customers.

In addition to remodeling the Bali Hi’s rooms, recarpeting, adding wireless Internet service and continental breakfast (all for a $35-a-night corporate rate), Mistry has a barbecue on each of the motel’s two levels for guests.

Olsen said the the Tri-Cities Visitor & Convention Bureau is doing a great job in attracting new business, now hoteliers, and the owners of restaurants, wineries and other tourist-dependent industries need to work with each other to help get visitors to the area and leave them with a great impression so they’ll want come back.

“You aren’t competing with other hotels, you are competing with other towns,” he said.