Brad and John - Mornings on KISM

swiftie hotel

Taylor Swift has 3 huge concerts in Vancouver this weekend! Lodging in BC is next to impossible, and it has even spilled over into Bellingham. We talked to Sara Holiday who manages a couple Hilton properties in town, and she told us about the influx of the Swifties!

Duration:: 6m
Broadcast on:: 06 Dec 2024
Audio Format:: other

Brad and Jon and 92.9 KISM. Well, if you have somebody rolling into town this weekend and they need to get a hotel room in say Wacom County, there might not be a lot to choose from this weekend because Taylor Swift is has her three nights of concerts at BC Place in Vancouver, tonight, tomorrow night and Sunday night. And according to news reports, they say some of those rooms are going for between a thousand and seven thousand dollars a night in Vancouver. In Vancouver. I don't know that there quite that much here, but you know who would know and would know about the occupancy rates and the Taylor Swift effect. That would be Sarah Holiday. She manages some of the Hilton properties in Bellingham, the home to sweets and the Hampton Inn. And I did see some pictures of one of your properties. And I did I really see a Taylor Swift Christmas tree that you have in the lobby. Is that what I saw Sarah? You bad. Hi, Brad and Jon. Yeah, we are just so excited to be able to host our Swifties that are headed our direction. And we definitely have a Taylor Swift tree in our lobby. We've got a large welcome our bracelet. Welcome for them. We, you know, have a few things set up some handmade ornaments that they can take home with them. We are ready to rock. Now, one of the hotels I was told had like like 50 or 60 of the occupants tonight, just our Taylor Swift concert goers. Does that sound right? 100% Yeah, I can tell you last year on this weekend, we were only at 10% occupancy. Both my hotels are over 90% occupancy for these next three days. Yeah, we are absolutely packed with these concert goers as is most of the town. Where are the some of the long distance check ins coming from? You know, it's really hard to tell, but I was just letting John know we've got a family that is staying with us and there's five of them. They are traveling here right now from Florida. They don't even have tickets to the concert. Vancouver is just putting on such a show up there and they have so many things that they are just traveling to just go be a part of the mayhem up there. So we know that we're going to see a lot of people traveling through our area for that concert. And that is it's crazy. So there's probably people from all over the world staying at these hotels, you know, trying to catch this last show of her tour. So what happened in Vancouver is, is, are these do you think these reports that we that we hear and see are correct that in Vancouver that some of these rooms at the hotels are going for a thousand and seven thousand a night? Yes, we know the correct because we have been doing rates searches for months and months and about four months ago, we really, you know, dive into that and they were selling for about $3,000 and $4,000 a night at that time. We had our rates that a year ago, the day that Taylor Swift announced the concert tour dates, the hotel rates went up in Vancouver. We adjusted ours about five months later, just supply and demand are definitely are not nearly as high as those Vancouver rates. But those rates are accurate. Yeah, this is Sarah holiday and she manages some Hilton properties in Bellingham, home to suites in the Hampton Inn. And this weekend, Taylor Swift has three shows at BC place in Vancouver. And the trickle down has really hit the the rooms in Wacom County. I don't know how long you've been here, Sarah. I don't know if you if you go back to the days of the Olympics in 2010 up there. But have you seen anything like this before in Vancouver that has affected the hotel rooms in Wacom County? I had the same job actually back in 2010. I very well remember those Olympics and no, this is this is something. This is the next event that has caused the biggest influx of guests for us here in Wacom County since that time. Really, it is just going to be the hugest economic boom, not only for the hotel properties here in town, but also the retail stores in our restaurants here in town as well. We're really interested to see, you know, how large the effect is, but for our hotels, it is very prominent and obvious straight out of the gate. Do you think with, you know, with this being a success and and you kind of catering to the Taylor Swift fans, this may play into future events coming into town like you could play more into maybe the Highland games and start serving some haggis breakfast and things like that and different reenactment themes for the game reenactment games and you know, those period pieces where people come in and costume and what have you furry conventions or whatever. Well, what we're hoping for is, you know, we've got the Fife coming up in Seattle here next year. And so we're really hoping that some of these people that are headed up in our direction really do take a couple extra days to really enjoy our Bellingham area, see what we have to offer. And then we hope that we really do see them back when we have those that Fife before up here. You know, some of these people are coming just down from Seattle. We really just want them to enjoy our Bellingham area. That's why our rates are nowhere near those Vancouver rates. We want them to be able to truly enjoy and, you know, enjoy within their budget. So they come back and see us many times. And I don't know what the minimum age is to rent a hotel room, but I bet some of the Taylor Swift fans are not of that age. And so there's probably a lot of parents that are just kind of getting dragged along to this thing. It's like, well, what can I do while they're at the concert kind of thing? You bet. Minima made this 21 typically for most hotels, but we have lots of parents that are here with us too. And truthfully, I think people forget Taylor Swift is 32. So she definitely has a lot of people in that age group that are older and younger. So we're seeing a full inflex of people who are in their teens and then clear up in their forties that are traveling for this concert. So again, 10% occupancy rate at this time last year in those hotels and around 90% this year. That's something else. All right, Sarah holiday, the regional manager for Hilton properties here in Bellingham, home to suites and Hampton. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you. You are so welcome, guys. We hope to have an opportunity to take care of you this holiday season if you're traveling and have a wonderful time this weekend. Merry Christmas or should I say Merry swiftness that's right. That's right. Thank you so much, guys. Yeah, brother. We won't see anything like this again until until the fog hat retirement tour comes to has its final stop in Joachim County. They'll be slammed again. And this is good preparation for them.