Art galleries galore — Check.
A plethora of fine dining establishments — check.
A brewpub on just about every corner — check.
$500 a night hotel rooms — check.
Yep, if you've got relatives or friends coming to town for a visit, you may want to give them a heads up for planning purposes. Christmas may be the most wonderful time of year for everyone else, but for local hoteliers it's definitely October, when hotel rooms command the highest prices and occupancy of the year.
And while it's not the going rate at every hotel in downtown Asheville during peak leaf season, 500 bucks a night is also well within the realm of possibility.
SEE ALSO:Buncombe tourism board OKs $17.4M budget, with advertising spending up 12 percent
Just ask Greg Artman, a retired journalist and public information officer who splits his time between Cruso in Haywood County and Key West, Florida. He's in the mountains now, and for years he and his wife have enjoyed venturing into downtown Asheville on a Saturday,then staying in a hotel to eliminatethe winding drive home.
"I used to love to come into Asheville, spend the night there, go to dinner, go to a play, go to an art gallery, have a couple of drinks —just have a good time and not worry about driving home,” Artman said. “I can’t do that anymore, not for $500 a night.”
The sticker shock came from pricing a room at the Aloft Hotel on Biltmore Avenue, in the heart of downtown and right across the street from an art gallery show he wanted to catch.
Indeed, an online search of the Asheville Aloft site turned up rate of$493 for an upcoming weekend night, along with this notation: "Jackpot! One of the best rates available for the dates you selected." That was for a room with one king-sized bed and a mountain view.
The Aloft is certainly not alone among downtown hotels in that stratospheric room rate realm. A recent search via Tripadvisor.comonline found weekend rates of $487 a night at the Hotel Indigo, $459 at the Hyatt Place downtown, $486 at the AC Hotel,and $427 at the Renaissance Asheville Hotel.
Add in taxes and fees, and voila! You've just experienced a $500 a night hotel, or pretty close to it.
All part of 'leaf-peeper season'
This is, in short, all about basic economics, one hotel manager says.
"October is leaf peeper season, and I'm sure the rates you're seeing are mostly weekend rates, as opposed to weekday rates," said Herman Turk, general manager of the Renaissance. "As we approach peak leaf season, prices will go up based on supply and demand."
SEE ALSO:Proposed 7-story boutique hotel in Asheville draws neighborhood heat: 'We don't want it'
The Renaissance, sandwiched between College and Woodfin Street and a literal stone's throw from the Thomas Wolfe House, has 275 rooms.
"We are pretty assured to sell out every weekend betweennowand early November and even through mid-November, as the leaves seem to be waiting a little later to turn," Turk said. "The weekends between now and New Year's will continue to be very strong. The leaves will fade and drop, but with Thanksgiving activities and all the things leading up and through Christmas, that'll keep things very strong through New Year's."
For some perspective, a quick Tripadvisor survey of hotels in downtown Charlotte found these high but not quite Asheville-esque prices for an upcoming Saturday night: Hyatthouse Charlotte Center City, $349;Hilton Charlotte Center City, $271;Hilton Garden Inn Charlotte Uptown, $286;Hyatt Place Charlotte Downtown, $319,Charlotte Marriott City Center, $339.
The Dunhill Hotel reaches Asheville territory, charging $429 a night.
In Knoxville, Tennessee, downtown hotels seemed downright cheap for that Saturday night rate. TheTennessean Hotel commands$220 a night, the Hyatt Place Knoxville/ Downtown$179, theCrowne Plaza Knoxville Downtown University$190 and theHampton Inn & Suites Knoxville Downtown, $147.
While the downtown Asheville hotel market grabs the most attention and demand, hoteliers in other parts of Asheville do just fine, too. That sampling through Tripadvisor shows the Comfort Suites Outlet Center off Brevard Road bringing $197 for a weekend night, the Hampton Inn & Suites Asheville at Biltmore Village$258, the Comfort Inn Tunnel Road and I-40, $177.
TheHomewood Suites by Hilton onTunnel Road is listed at$335, while theHoliday Inn Asheville,Biltmore East charges$260.
You can still visit Asheville on a budget, you've just got to look a little harder. For instance, theBest Western on Tunnel Road had rates from $104 nightly for Oct. 19.
SEE ALSO: With nearly 2,000 hotel rooms coming online, Asheville's airport has key tourism role
October the busiest month of the year
Buncombe County has seen strong growth in hotel rooms in recent years — if all hotel projects slated to come online in 2018-19 are on schedule, Buncombe County will have 9,400 rooms in 2019, up from 6,650 in 2015, a 41 percent jump.
So a booming October is a key to success, and October is the busiest month of year, a tradition that translates into the highest room rates of the year, especially downtown and in Biltmore Village. In October 2017, that average daily rate for hotels in downtown was $251.76, compared to $187.93 for all of Buncombe.
For all of Buncombe County in 2017, the next highest month was December, at $169.18, followed by November at $163.92, which edged July out by 24 cents, according to Explore Asheville, the Asheville Convention & Visitors Bureau.
"Demand (in October) was slightly higher than July in 2017, but some of that can be attributed to an increase in rooms due to the AC Hotel coming online in August 2017," said Marla Tambellini, deputy director and vice president of marketingat Explore Asheville. "Historically, July and October are the two busiest months of the year with similar occupancy rates."
Demand, she said, refers tothe number of rooms sold.
The cheapest average rate comes in January, when it dipped to $111.20 in 2017.
Officials expect all those new hotel rooms coming online to put downward pressure on average room rates. Thataverage for October 2017 ($187.93) dropped $1.50 from 2016, but it was still considerably higher than 2015, at $174.65.
How about Biltmore, Grove Park Inn?
While the downtown is indeed pricey, the Biltmore area takes the prize for most expensive October average in 2017, at$291.34. That's in part because it includes the two hotels on the Biltmore Estate.
"Starting rates for October weekends are $499 at Village Hotel on Biltmore Estate and $599 at The Inn on Biltmore Estate," said Biltmore Estate spokeswoman Marissa Jamison, who added in early October that they weren't sold out yet but had "very limited availability in October.October through December marks our busiest season and highest rates of the year."
The estate brings in about 1.4 million visitors a year, and itexpects demand for hotels to continue growing, along with visitation.
The Asheville area drew 10.9 million visitors in 2016, according a study the CVB commissioned.
"We are seeing visitation to Biltmore increase every year and expect that to continue," Jamison said. "We also expect that October through December will remain our busiest time of year based on visitation trends."
The Grand Bohemian Hotel, a newer, luxury hotel in the heart of Biltmore Village, also contributes to Biltmore Village's high average. An online check found it wasbooked for this Saturday and next, but, as of the middle of last week,the first Saturday in November was open — at $701 a night.
At the historic Omni Grove Park Inn in North Asheville,Tripadvisor found a weekend rate of $469 a night.
"The month of October will be our highest room occupancy month for the year, with a good mix of both group and leisure travelers," said inn spokeswoman Tracey Johnston-Crum. "October rates are indeed the highest of the year, due to compression and demand. And we see a typical annual rate increase of an average of 3 percent."
They too hope demand will continue to rise.
"One thing we have seen consistently over the past several yearsis that guests book further in advance for weekends in October, (more) than for any other month of the year," Johnston-Crum said.
Tourists spend $2 billion a year
Tourists spent about $2 billion a year in Buncombe County, the CVB study found. About 23 percent of visitor spending goes to the lodging industry, which includes hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, and short-term vacation rentals. So the bulk of the tourists' dollars goes to shops, restaurants, galleries, brewpubs and otherenterprises.
Artman says he knows his decision to skip a little luxury visit to the downtown with his wife is not exactly going to break the hotels or the local tourism economy. And, as a guy who spends more than half of the year in Key West, Florida, another tourism Mecca, he's philosophical about Asheville's high-flying hotel rates.
They've tried several hotels over the years, including one west of the French Broad River, but they would find the same phenomenon —cheaper rates initially, then the leaf season-fueled escalation in prices.
"Of course, Key West has gone through the same tourism-oriented overload that Asheville has," Artman said. "It’s the time of year when people want to go there, and they’ll pay the price. And the hotels, of course, as long as the people are paying the price, that’s what they’re going to charge – what the market will bear."
Turk, the Renaissance manager, said Asheville has become a tourism juggernaut, and with that comes what some see as extravagant hotel rates, others simply as what the market will bear.
"It tells me that Asheville has been found,and that we’ve got a great reputation for so many things to do in the area, and people want to be part of that," Turk said.
2017 average daily rates for hotels in different parts of Asheville andBuncombe County:
Downtown, October 2017:$251.76 (Also includes Omni Grove Park Inn in North Asheville, the Crown Plaza and Country Inn & Suites in Westgate).
Buncombe County, October 2017,including downtown:$187.93
Biltmore Village area (October 2017), including hotels on Biltmore Estate:$291.34.
Average daily rate for Buncombe County for all of 2017 was $153.88.
Source: Explore Asheville, Convention & Visitors Bureau
