Carbondale Bytelife

Since the Southern Illinoisan made this a Poshard free holiday, my eye was caught by this piece in the local section of the paper on the lack of hotel rooms, or not, in Carbondale. According to the article, There are about 850 rooms in Carbondale and Murphysboro. The Carbondale Convention and Tourism Bureau would like about 300 more. I remember hearing about four years ago that state sports tournaments avoided the 'dale because, while we had great facilities for them to use, we didn't have enough places for them to stay. Since then, with the addition of the Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Conference Center and the Ramada, we've added 244 rooms, which is probably still not enough to support the needs of a statewide tournament.

However, we're not really enough of a business hub to justify 1150 rooms. In the article, Charlie Brown of Charlie B. Brown and Associates here in Carbondale says the Holiday Inn Conference Center, which his firm helped develop, hasn't met profit projections and probably won't for a couple of more years. Anecdotally, whenever I drive by any of the hotels in town, unless it's a weekend, there are only a scattering of cars in the lot. I counted 5 in the Hampton's lot as I drove by today. That's not enough to sustain a business. I assume the current hotels are doing well enough to stay in business now but what would adding 2 to 3 more hotels do to their profitability?

Labels: Carbondale, Convention and Tourism Bureau, tourism