Inauguration books up local hotels

Hotels across the Charlottesville region are reporting heavy bookings for next month’s presidential inauguration 120 miles away.
As rooms will be scarce in Washington and Northern Virginia for the Jan. 20 swearing-in of Barack Obama, an increasing portion of the 4 million expected inaugural spectators are seeking lodging far outside the capital area.
“Oh yeah, we’re booked,” said Doris Oliphant, sales manager of the Hampton Inn of Charlottesville, off U.S. 29. “It started right after the election. We’ve got a lot of groups coming.”

Other such far-flung locales seeing a surge in inaugural hotel bookings include Philadelphia (140 miles away), Richmond (105 miles), Williamsburg (150 miles), Waynesboro (140 miles), Luray (92 miles) and Fredericksburg (50 miles).
The new Best Western Charlottesville Inn and Suites in Ruckersville is reporting strong interest. Of the hotel’s 120 rooms, 22 remain open for the night before the inauguration.
“We have four groups coming,” said Ellen Williams, assistant general manager. “All of it is for the inauguration. I do know that for sure.”
The Best Western hotel in Zion Crossroads, meanwhile, has only one of its 84 rooms not yet booked for the night of Jan. 19.
“We’re mostly booked up,” said Christina Hinkle, an administrative assistant at the Louisa County hotel. “I’m positive it’s all for the inauguration.”
January tends to be a slow month for Charlottesville-area hotels, tourism officials said. The unusual burst of bookings for the inauguration should provide a welcome windfall for local hoteliers amid the slowing economy.

“We’re going to see an impact, especially for that time of year,” said Allie Baer of the Charlottesville Albemarle Visitors & Convention Bureau. “I’m cautiously optimistic.”
Not all local hotels are seeing a bump. Both the Omni Charlottesville Hotel on the Downtown Mall and the Doubletree Hotel Charlottesville off U.S. 29 report they have received a few phone calls inquiring about availability, but have not yet seen the mass bookings enjoyed by other Central Virginia hotels.
“We have mixed results,” Baer said. “Some are filling up quickly, while others haven’t seen an impact.”
One local hot spot is Orange County, 90 minutes from Washington. Many of the county’s bed and breakfast businesses are reporting much demand.
“I didn’t expect it to come this far south, but when it started to happen, we all said, ‘What the heck?’” said Jack North, owner of the Mayhurst Inn. “All of the inns around here are seeing activity.”

While some of the Orange County visitors are traveling to the inauguration, others are Washington residents who want to escape the crowds or who rented out their home for a couple of days to out-of-towners, North said.
The Virginia Tourism Corp., the state-funded entity that promotes tourism in the commonwealth, is working with Washington’s tourism bureau to help find lodging for visitors. Plus, the agency is aiming to attract additional visitors by offering special tourism packages that capitalize on Virginia’s reputation as the “mother of presidents.” One such package at the Boar’s Head Inn offers guests two nights’ accommodation, tickets to Charlottesville-area presidential homes and more for $570 to $1,102 per couple.
“There’s just a great amount of interest in presidential politics right now,” said Tamara Talmadge Anderson, a VTC spokeswoman. “We have so much presidential history and so many connections to presidential politics.”