February 25, 2004 
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 

Harley-Davidson celebration gave hotels a boost; Harley-Davidson celebration gave hotels a boost, report says; Industry saw 2% jump in occupancy in 2003

The Harley-Davidson 100th Anniversary Celebration helped the local hotel industry to turn the corner after three years of declines, with a 2% increase in occupancy in 2003, according to a report released Tuesday by the Greater Milwaukee Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Rate discounting throughout the year held the hotel revenue increase to 1%, bureau President Doug Neilson said.

Overall traveler spending in the area rose by 4.2% last year, to $2.5 billion from $2.4 billion in 2002, according to the study prepared for the convention bureau by Davidson Peterson Associates Inc.

The report on rooms booked through the bureau for conventions showed 238,339 room nights booked last year, down from 240,825 in 2002. That number has declined every year since 2000, when 265,236 rooms were booked, and is the lowest since 1999, when 172,442 rooms were used.

"The convention business has held its own," Neilson said, noting that the year-to-year decline was small.

Looking ahead, though, the report listed 166,094 room nights booked by the bureau in 2003 for future events, down from 252,759 rooms reserved during 2002.

Neilson said the dramatic slide was partly the reflection of Harley rooms booked during 2002 in advance of the anniversary event in 2003. But it also shows a shift in the way rooms are booked.

In recent years, convention-goers have been making greater use of the Internet to search for bargain room rates, instead of using official convention booking agencies, Neilson said. That has left organizers with unfilled blocks of reserved rooms, and has prompted some hotels to impose fees on the organizers for unused rooms.

Now organizers are reserving smaller blocks of rooms, to avoid such fees, Neilson said.

Convention numbers also fell last year, to 182 held here from 198 in 2002. But the meetings drew substantially more people, 626,992, compared with 384,306 in 2002, and the economic impact of the 2003 gatherings increased slightly, to $149.7 million, from $149.6 million the prior year.

Chicago-based hotel consultant Ted Mandigo said Milwaukee 's experience with conventions is similar to what is happening elsewhere.

"Just about every convention bureau around the country is scrambling, because numbers are down and bookings are down," Mandigo said.

Business travel cutbacks and a general decline in air travel have resulted in lower attendance at conventions as well as fewer people using rooms booked by convention organizers, he said.

Future convention bookings made in 2003 by the Milwaukee bureau include the American Society for Quality in May 2006; the Ecological Society of America and the American Zoo and Aquarium Association for 2008; the National Association of Home Builders for September 2009; the National Model Railroad Association for July 2010; and the International City /County Management Association for September 2011.