Roundtable: Tourism & Hospitality
system, it’s all about congestion relief. How do we open Hampton Roads to allow peo- ple to come in and easily get out? The second is air service. In my opin-
ion and the chamber’s opinion, we’ve got inadequate air service in Hampton Roads. We need to expand our routes. One of the ways that you do that is to improve the air- port that we have now. Optimally, what you want to do is build a new airport here in the Hampton Roads region, a mega-region type airport that’s going to be a hub. We’re in full support of doing a feasibility study on that, but while we wait, we believe that we have to improve our current airport. The third is a rail system. We have a
passenger rail system here, an Amtrak sys- tem, but it’s totally inadequate. There is a plan for high-speed rail to go from the Northeast all the way down through Rich- mond, down to Roanoke and on down to Atlanta and areas further Southeast, bypassing Hampton Roads completely. We think that a spur of that high-speed rail has to come down to Hampton Roads, and we’re working hard to try to make that happen. The fourth category is public trans-
portation … It’s especially applicable to those who work in the hotel and restau- rant industry because a lot of your employ- ees are the ones who are using public trans- portation. We’ve got a fractured system right now where a worker at a hotel may take a bus to work and can’t take a bus back because the bus system stops at 5 p.m. We’ve got to work with organizations to fix that. The other is light rail. We had a referendum to approve light rail to Vir- ginia Beach Town Center, which was voted down. I think there’s a place in Hampton Roads for light rail [expansion.]
Treadaway: The airport authority in the Metropoli- tan Washington region is definitely going to make it a high priority to go after any kind of infrastructure fund- ing that could become avail-
able. Anything we can do to lower our costs and increase our revenues, increase cus- tomer service and keep our routes that we have and develop new ones, we have an obli- gation to do that. Last year, about 45½ mil- lion people passed through the two airports [Dulles and Ronald Reagan National] gen-
34 MAY 2017
erating 387,000 jobs in the region. Many of those were in Northern Virginia.
Erickson: One of the things that’s been mentioned on the panel several times has been regional opportunities. The five regions up in our area — Prince William County, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax and Loudoun — work together, especially when going after the international mar- ket, because we recognize that international visitors don’t see boundary lines. These five regions of Northern Virginia drive 40 percent of the revenue to the Common- wealth of Virginia from tourism. We rec- ognize that, by bringing the five [localities] together, we have the opportunity to focus on culture and history, to focus on culinary experiences, shopping, to really give that robust product.
Patel: I echo that. Going back to the question about infrastructure, the Metro for us along the toll road will be absolutely critical. Two years ago when [a nearby Metro- rail station] opened, prob-
ably one or two of our guests were taken to the Metro. Today we’re probably taking five to 10 guests to the Metro station. I think that’s absolutely critical, and people today are moving in that direction.
Terry: The Silver line has shocked me up in your area in terms of how many tour- ists are using it. They’ll find the cheaper room rate out that way, and they don’t pay $500 dollars a night [to stay] in the Dis- trict. They stay in Tysons and spend $200 dollars a night and Metro in. That’s a real driver.
Sarver: For Richmond, we don’t have light rail. But we do have under construction a bus rapid transit line. It’s going to go right past the Stone bistro, and we’re very excited about that. Access to
and from the airports is very important. Right now, you land in Richmond — it’s a great little airport — but if you don’t have an Uber app o r a car, you’re kind of up the creek. Why can’t we have the bus rapid transit go to the airport, then go through downtown?
Squires: We’re going to move to hotel amenities. Are they becoming more important as a way to compete against short-term, online rental companies?
Patel: I think the most important ame- nity is internet. It seems like the bandwidth needs are always growing … We were talk- ing earlier (and I tried this a few weeks ago at a Hilton product) where I didn’t have to go to the front desk anymore. I literally go straight to the room and push the button. It’s moving in that direction — the lack of the interpersonal. For us the public space is critical. A lot of the public spaces are becom- ing friendlier, more soft seating and outdoor seating today. A lot of our hotels are coming out with outdoor fire pits because people don’t want to be stuck inside their rooms.
Squires: What about you Bruce?
Thompson: We were talking just yester- day about iPads for wine lists, and I said, ‘You know, these iPads are great. We have them in a half dozen or more of our restau- rants, but what happens is it takes out the interaction with the guest and our server.’ Now it’s one less touch point that we have with the customer. Pretty soon we’re start- ing to feel like Airbnb. So if you don’t need to talk to anybody about your wine, you don’t need to go to the front desk, so what are you going to do? From our standpoint, it is about creating social spaces, really vibrant and active social spaces where peo- ple can get together and feel good about it. The other piece of it is quality and service. We’re loading our properties up with tech- nology, service, social spaces and quality products. Airbnb can’t compete with that.
Treadaway: If I had to say what our big- gest challenge is, it’s that we have to look ahead and adapt to the change that’s com- ing. Uber has already arrived in our market. How does that impact garage occupancy? How does that impact taxi usage, and what about when we were going to kick off our billion-dollar construction project at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Air- port? How is that going to worsen conges- tion? I would say that it’s never one thing. It’s always a combination … We have to play the cards we’re dealt in terms of where these changes are coming and how far we can get in front of them to manage them.
Photos by Mark Rhodes
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80
