This summer, the hotel and tourism industry is predicting a stronger financial season compared to last year with a larger return of amateur sports tournaments, which translates into hotel stays and visiting restaurants and businesses, industry professionals said.
In Lake County, businesses lost about 25% of revenue last summer, which is the lowest revenue lost across the state, said Speros Batistatos, president of the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority. Through amateurs sports and outdoor activities, people still visited area business, he said.
“Don’t get me wrong, losing 25% of your business hurts,” Batistatos said. “We were able to, through amateur sports, through outdoor activity, still get people into our businesses and performed very well compared to the level of loss that other counties experienced.”
The Indiana Dunes National Park broke records last summer as people were looking for outdoor activities, which were deemed safest during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Indiana Dunes Executive Director Lorelei Weimer.
The record number of people last summer can also be contributed to the dunes being designated a national park in 2019 because it put the area on people’s radar as a place to go to the beach, hike and do other outdoor activities, Weimer said. It’s likely the dunes will see more record attendance this summer, she said.
“Last summer, we did break record attendance at both the state park and the national park because people were looking for those outdoor recreation (activities). But, what didn’t happen because people were so concerned about safety — which rightly so — is that you didn’t see those folks staying at our hotels or going into our restaurants,” Weimer said.
But, with the vaccine and less restrictive mask mandates for vaccinated people, Weimer said its likely more people will feel safer visiting the dunes and then booking a hotel and eating at local restaurants. Batistatos agreed, and said he’s hopeful that this summer will see pre-COVID “performance levels.”
Since December, through the end of this year, area hotels have the option to offer discounts to encourage people to stay in the area, Weimer said. Additionally, the dunes now offer a digital platform — as opposed to a booklet — for coupons to area restaurants and businesses, she said.
“That’s where the real economic impact takes place. We want them to get off the highway, get into the dunes, enjoy that dunes experience, but then we need to really get them south of the dunes and into our communities,” Weimer said.
Batistatos said this will be a “huge summer” for amateur sports in the region, from swim meets and table tennis to softball tournaments.
“We can’t book enough of it,” Batistatos said. “I do think there is some pent-up demand.”
Christine Cash, general manager of the Ramada by Wyndham in Hammond, said this summer will be “100% better” than last year because business is already up this spring compared to last spring. Amateur sports will bring business to the hotel, particularly because the Hammond Sportsplex and Community Center is hosting many tournaments over the summer, Cash said.
Kymberli Roberts, the general manager of the Hammond Sportsplex and Community Center, said that since the sports complex reopened in June 2020 there have been tournaments scheduled each weekend, and the facility is booked through about June 2022. When the facility reopened last year, its policy was that one parent per teammate can watch tournaments, Roberts said, but now the facility is at 85% capacity.
The facility holds basketball, volleyball and soccer tournaments, Roberts said, with about 75% of those tournaments with teams from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. About 25% of tournaments have teams from as far as Oregon and Florida, she said.
The tournaments translate to hotel stays, restaurant outings and going into local businesses, Roberts said. For travel tournaments, a teammate will bring parents, siblings and grandparents to watch them play, so the families turn the trips into mini-vacations, she said.
“It all goes hand-in-hand,” Roberts said. “It’s a family outing. After we watch you play, we’ll get food. We’ll go swim in the hotel pool.”
Outside of amateur sports, people will likely visit the area this summer to do outdoor activities, visit family and attend festivals, Batistatos said. The push for promoting the region this summer will be the same as last year, which is small town charm, outdoor space and beaches, he said.
“I think we’re going to have a lot of business this summer. I think it’s going to do very well. I think our hotels are going to perform at near pre-COVID levels at both rate and occupancy,” Batistatos said.
Families are also starting to book reunions at the hotel, Cash said, and people will likely travel more to the dunes as the weather warms up.
“I think you’re going to find more people traveling locally — when I say locally like within an hour drive or 100-mile radius — where they may spend the night at a hotel,” Cash said. “I think that you’ll get people just outside of Michigan maybe coming to Chicago, they’ll stop here because it’s so close and more reasonable than downtown.”
Even with restrictions being lifted, some pandemic protocols are still in place within the hotel, like staff members wearing masks and plexiglass shields at the counters, Cash said. The hotel is still offering grab-and-go breakfast as opposed to continental breakfast, she said.
With Chicago lifting COVID-19 restrictions and bus tour groups — which rent dozens of rooms — starting to plan trips again, Cash said the fall is even starting to look promising.
Typically over the summer, the bus tours, which come from various states, stop at the Hammond hotel on their way to Chicago, Cash said. As states begin to reopen, the bus tours have been planning for the fall, she said.
“I think seniors are feeling more secure booking now tours for the fall because everybody is going to get their shot by then,” Cash said.
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