Virginia Beach tourism takes first dip since 1990

VIRGINIA BEACH

After nearly two decades of annual increases, visitor spending fell nearly 3 percent in Virginia Beach last year - and city leaders are relatively pleased about it.

"It could have been a lot worse," Jim Ricketts, director of the Virginia Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau, said of the 2.9 percent decrease. It was the city's first decline since 1990.

"These are extraordinary times in terms of the economy," he said. "Under the circumstances, I think we came out the best we could."

The Beach's fallout was relatively mild compared with that of other tourist cities, according to the city's annual report on tourism economic impact released Thursday.

Ricketts said a confidentiality agreement with other tourist cities prevented him from divulging exact comparisons. But he did ballpark several areas in which the Beach revenue loss was significantly less than in competitive markets such as Ocean City, Md.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

For example, hotel room nights booked fell 3.6 percent in Virginia Beach, but they fell from 5.2 percent to 14.1 percent in the competing areas. Hotel room sales declined 0.6 percent in the Beach and from 0.9 percent to 16.2 percent in the other cities.

Similar numbers through the first quarter of 2009 show the Beach continuing to fare well relative to its competition.

"I was a little surprised," said Gilbert Yochum, who prepared the economic report with fellow Old Dominion University economics professor Vinod Agarwal. "But compared to what we've seen elsewhere, we did better than we expected."

Equally surprising was the fact that visitor spending fell only about 2.9 percent - to $864.3 million from $889.9 million - while the number of overnight visitors fell 9.5 percent.

"We had fewer visitors, but it was higher-income people that were coming," Yochum said. He added that the tourism industry still provided $78.4 million in tax revenue, the same as last year.

Complete relief from the economy-driven lull could be a ways off, though.

Figures through April for hotel occupancy, room nights booked, revenue and several other categories are down from a year ago. In addition, the U.S. Travel Association projects that summer leisure travel will be off 2.2 percent in the June-August period.

Ricketts expects the city's efforts to make Virginia Beach a year-round destination to continue to mitigate some of the losses. An aggressive sports marketing team, for example, has helped the city become home to winter field hockey and wrestling tournaments and has an agreement to host a fencing competition next year.

"We've been insulated a little bit because we're no longer just a summer destination," Ricketts said.

Paul White, (757) 418-1447, paul.white@pilotonline.com