THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504150141
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Virginia Beach is the Chevrolet Lumina of East Coast resorts, a solid mid-priced destination that could become a Cadillac with the right investment and tinkering.
That was the latest assessment of the state of the city's hospitality industry by Gilbert Yochum, head of marketing research for Old Dominion University.
Yochum made his point Thursday at a meeting of the Resort Area Advisory Commission, where he described Virginia Beach as a ``very strong market'' despite the effects of an economic turn-down in 1990 and the the 1989 Greekfest rioting.
``I think you should think of Virginia Beach as a product,'' he told commission members.
``What kind of product? Consider it a Chevy Lumina. It's got a lot of options. I would like to recommend that the RAAC consider changing the product and reorganizing spending (priorities). You don't change a Lumina into a Cadillac overnight.''
Yochum directs an annual Boardwalk survey for the city's office of Convention and Tourism Development. Teams of pollsters, armed with questionnaires, buttonholed strollers and ask them a barrage of standard questions.
This year's poll, said Yochum, showed that hotel and motel stays have risen 20 percent since 1984; that the average length of summer stay per individual is constant at 4 1/2 days; that visitor spending has risen about 20 percent; that the average income of visitors has risen 25 percent; that the average age of visitors has increased by three years and that the resort has more repeat business than originally thought.
``You have a tremendous brand loyalty,'' he said. ``I would estimate that the ($35 million) Atlantic Avenue beautification is responsible for a third or a half of the increase in visitation since the 1990 economic downturn.''
Another statistic cited by Yochum was that locals - residents of Virginia Beach and surrounding Hampton Roads cities - comprise 75 percent of the daytime Oceanfront visitation in the summer and 25 percent of the total number of visitors, which tops the 2 million mark each year.
He added that the ethnic diversity of resort visitors mirrors the makeup of the city's Northeastern United States, which is the city's traditional tourist market.
Yochum's data is based on periodic interviews of 3,446 people on the Boardwalk between May and September last year.
What are the good things that have happened to the Virginia Beach hospitality industry? Yochum listed the construction of a limited-access highway (U.S. 1) through Delaware, a major route for tourists from Pennsylvania and New York; the Atlantic Avenue beautification project; and the expanded national economy.
The ``bad things,'' said Yochum, include the loss last year of a big chunk of Canadian tourism due to the downturn in currency exchange rates and the opening of the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge Tunnel, which diverts southbound traffic on the Peninsula to the Bowers Hill area of Chesapeake and channels it down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Another minus, said Yochum is ``flat'' advertising. The city has not increased its tourist advertising spending appreciably in recent years, nor has it aimed advertising at new markets.
``Things to do,'' Yochum said, include city backing of a third Hampton Roads bridge-tunnel; the construction of another bridge tunnel across the Chesapeake Bay; continued investment in projects like the Atlantic Avenue beautification; and stepped up spending on advertising.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH TOURISM by CNB