Growing city increases need for more area hotels
GOLDEN TRIANGLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Tourists flood the Golden Triangle during football season, but other additions to the region have also increased the need for more visitor resources, including places to stay.
“Tourism is Mississippi’s 4th largest industry. It is a vital economic driver for our state,” said Paige Hunt, the Director of Tourism for the Greater Starkville Development Partnership.
The Golden Triangle is continuously growing with new businesses and facilities that are attracting out-of-town visitors as well as locals.
That increase in visitors is prompting a need for more hotel rooms.
“We are certainly in need of additional hotels and with them comes more people, and opportunities for more sales and obviously more people eating and enjoying the amenities that the city of Starkville has,” said Starkville Mayor Lynn Spruill.
The Cornerstone Sports Complex is one addition that the city of Starkville expects to bring a lot of visitors and dollars through tournaments.
Mississippi State also brings in a lot of visitors for games and events.
“I think (naturally) the hotels in and near around the football stadium fills up first. And then more fill up, more fill up, more fill up. There’s not long after
Starkville fills up, then you’re going to West Point or Columbus for those hotels to fill up,” said Joe Max Higgins, Jr., the CEO of the Golden Triangle Development Link.
To help increase the number of available rooms, Starkville city leaders are looking it incentivize hotel developers.
“This new hotel that we’re looking will add potentially will add another somewhere in the neighborhood of 85 to 90 hotels in the city, but we are underserved by about 200 or more hotels, hotel rooms,” said Spruill.
Presently, there are 875 hotel rooms available in Starkville.
However, the tourism industry said that Starkville needs about 1,100 to 1,200 hotel rooms to serve that size of a market.
“If you’re going to be bringing visitors in, there’s going to be a constant need to have places for them to stay. You know ‘Bed and Breakfasts’ are out there, Airbnb’s are there, but hotels are still a pretty big part of that. We probably have a pretty decent unmet need on hotels right now,” said Higgins.
Starkville Aldermen approved a twelve-year tax abatement plan for a proposed hotel plan that would add about 85 new rooms.
Oktibbeha County Supervisors will also have to sign off on the deal for it to move forward.
