Before spring break starts, St. Louis tourism sees rise

Friday, March 19, 2021

Spring break season is all set to kick-start and St. Louis is ready to welcome more visitors than what it has seen in months. The COVID situation impacted the hospitality and tourism industry of the region right away more than a year ago.

“We are certainly not out of the woods, but we are seeing some green shoots, we’re seeing some steady progress,” Brian Hall, Explore St. Louis chief marketing officer said.

Hall explained that spring break and opening day of baseball characteristically mean the kick-start of tourism season in St. Louis. In June 2020, FOX 2 reported that the metro area hotel occupancy rate went as low as 18.4% in early April.
The occupancy rate in mid-March bounced back to 46 percent, the most since October, as per Brian Hall, the chief marketing officer with Explore St. Louis.

The recent data is however providing hope to hotel owners like Amrit Gill. He is the CEO of Innkeeper Hospitality Services, which owns Hotel Saint Louis in downtown.

“At this time last year is when we had no reservations and nobody was coming into the hotel at all,” he said. “We’re still dramatically down, but we’re starting to see a lot of green shoots, a lot of increased reservations starting to come in.”
Hall also stated that local attractions like the Union Station, St. Louis Zoo, and The Gateway Arch are all experiencing a visitor rise. Meanwhile, St. Louis Lambert International Airport is experiencing rise in passenger levels as high as the holiday season as well.

“It’s exciting once again to see that both St. Louisans are getting on planes and taking trips, and people are coming into St. Louis,” Hall said. Hall also said that the leisure travel sector is rising; however, sports competitions and group travel are also getting back.

“We had volleyball two consecutive weekends, we had a gymnastics trial, we just finished up D2 wrestling, now this week D1 wrestling.”

As vaccinations increase and cases of COVID-19 have started getting decreased in numbers, Hall hopes that there will be a complete return of the hospitality in St. Louis in the next 12-24 months. However, he expects corporate or business travel to be the last to return.

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