GAMING COMMISSION

Coast gears up to attract guests

Tourism's focus, path at center stage

By MARY PEREZ
meperez@sunherald.com

As volunteers from around the country brought hammers and cash to rebuild homes and the economy after Katrina, Coast hotel occupancy jumped in 2006.

"But supply has increased much more than demand has," said Linda Hornsby, executive director of the Mississippi Hotel & Lodging Association. The occupancy rate fell 17.5 percent from January to August compared with the same period in 2006 and she believes, "When there is demand we will have more hotel rooms."

Steve Richer, executive director of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau, said to reach Premier Destination status will require four key elements: a variety of hotel rooms, a large amount of meeting space, seats on airplanes and things to do such as fishing, golf and shopping.

"We have most of the things that are on that list and more coming," he said. More hotels, more retail, more restaurants and more developers knocking on his door looking for opportunity.

Michael McNeil, marketing director for Sterling Resorts, recently hosted a group of investors from Minnesota visiting Biloxi. "There is no real estate investment opportunity up there," he said, and they were drawn to the Coast to learn about Revelay, a beachfront condo development adjacent to the Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center.

"(Revelay) was designed around vacationing families and conventioneers," said McNeil and the centerpiece is a $10 million water complex with pools and a lazy river. The company just completed a smaller water project at one of its properties in Florida and McNeil said, "It's been an amazing success," with 99 percent occupancy.

Revelay, and two more casinos, Bacaran Bay and Royal D'Iberville, could break ground this year and with Margaritaville Casino already under construction, Richer said, "They're noticing all over America."

The Gulf Coast Business Council's Tourism Committee, co-chaired by Dave Dennis and Ricky Mathews, is pooling the efforts of all three Coast counties and every segment of the tourism market.

"No one entity owns tourism," Mathews said, and together with several subcommittees they are working "to define very specifically what we need to do to reach our goals. By the end of the year we are going to devise a comprehensive vision for what South Mississippi can be when we reach Tier 1 destination status," he said. Then tasks will be assigned to reach those goals.

The Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport has already signed with several airlines to provide more direct service to the Coast. Along with a total of 33,000 hotel rooms, the area will need possibly one million square feet of convention space.

MISSISSIPPI