Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 18, 1993 TAG: 9308180057
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAT BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
More than 5,000 rooms in the Roanoke and New River valleys already are booked for Saturday night, desk clerks said Tuesday. And only a few rooms are available for Friday travelers.
Innkeepers expect to fill rooms with parents weary from driving U-Hauls and vans and unloading belongings for their collegiate offspring. Parents get one lucky break: Room rates are not at peak and in some cases carry summer discounts or are packaged with breakfast and other meal coupons. Rates rise for autumn football weekends, parents weekend and graduation.
Pam Cantrell, on the desk at Day's Inn in Christiansburg, said it's full this weekend. The $47 rate for double occupancy nearly doubles on weekends when Tech has a home football game.
It's the same at the Holiday Inn in Blacksburg, where parents this weekend will get coupons they can use for $1 off any meal. Two employees are being added, and other staffers will be expected to pull longer shifts to accommodate the crowd.
Because of the coupons and because some clients bought special packages that include breakfasts, chef John Early was stocking the dining room's pantry as early as Tuesday.
The Super 8 in Radford has been booked for six weeks, said desk clerk Robin Hall. The Red Lion Inn in Blacksburg has known for four months it will be full on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Even in Roanoke, the first wave of back-to-school travel is leaving ripples. The Radisson Patrick Henry Hotel, an hour away from either university, is booked to capacity for Saturday night, said Bill Carter, general manager.
The Quality Inn in Salem also is expecting a full house this weekend. In addition to the overflow crowd from the universities, the hotel will lodge softball players in town to compete at the U.S. Slow Pitch Softball Association tournament at the Moyer Sports Complex.
Beth Ifju, director of sales and marketing for the Blacksburg Marriott hotel and president of the Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce, said her rooms for Friday and Saturday have been sold out for several months. The $79 room rate includes breakfast, an enticement the motel does not have to extend in the busier fall season.
Ifju, who said she routinely seeks lodging for customers she can't accommodate, found competitors within a 40-mile radius also are booked solid.
"There are 5,000 students in Tech's freshman class," she said, "and we don't have 5,000 rooms in the area."
There actually are closer to 4,100 students in Tech's freshman class, said Susan Bambach in the university's admissions office, but the 1,770 freshmen expected at Radford more than make up the difference in Ifju's calculations.
The Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau lists 3,900 rooms in the Roanoke metropolitan area; there are another 1,590 in the New River Valley, according to a survey by Virginia Tech students for New River Valley Hosts, a tourism group.
by CNB