ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, April 6, 1996                TAG: 9604080014
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-8  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER 

HOTEL DENIES RUMORS THAT IT'S CLOSING

The Patrick Henry Hotel is spending "a couple of hundred thousand dollars" to replace furniture in 36 of its guest rooms and carpet two large meeting rooms, its general manager said Friday, adding there are no plans to close.

William Carder said that is proof that the hotel has no plans to shut down as reported Friday. He said the hotel is staying in Roanoke for the long term despite a downturn in travel business for the regional market. That's despite comments he made, quoted in a story Friday, that the facility may be in jeopardy.

At the same time, he criticized existing efforts to bring more travelers to Roanoke as being too small. "Every hotel in Roanoke is in trouble," he said. "It's not a good thing for anyone."

He declined to give occupancy figures for the Patrick Henry, but he said room rentals dropped 6.8 percent last year for the valley's handful of first-grade hotels. The middle and lower tier of hotels are doing just fine, Carder said.

The travel pie for the Roanoke market shrank last year just as Hotel Roanoke reopened.

The upper market, he said, "is beginning to cannibalize itself" by cutting rates, which doesn't help anyone.

Hotel Roanoke has reduced its room rates significantly since it opened a year ago, he said. The Patrick Henry has cut some rates, but held its corporate rate. It competes by offering premiums, he said, such as special prices for breakfast and turn-down service with milk and cookies.

"There shouldn't be a complacency about the status of this market," Carder said.

He called for "a sense of urgency" in promoting conventions, tour groups and other forms of travel.

He said the tourism business should promote itself on a regional basis, encompassing the Roanoke Valley, north to Natural Bridge and including Smith Mountain Lake and Claytor Lake.

All those hotels and communities should contribute money to the tourism effort, Carder said.

The budget of the Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau should be several million dollars instead of $500,000 to $600,000, he said. A large regional effort is needed to compete with such places as Virginia Beach and Williamsburg, Carder said. He called the bureau "very, very strapped."

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