By Paul Minnis
pminnis@therepublic.com
Hotels are popping up in and around Columbus like ocean waves stirred by a breeze of tourism.
Hotel Indigo is slated to open this month in downtown Columbus. Candlewood Suites, also downtown, will open in April 2009. Hilton Garden Inn near Edinburgh Premium Outlets will open in early spring.
Add that to a sizable expansion of Charwood Corporate Suites, a remodeling of the Holiday Inn and Conference Center and Wednesday's announcement of the new Columbus Residence Inn, and you wonder if the breeze is turning into a tornado.
A study released this week by Indiana
Office of Tourism Development, a division of Indiana government, shows a record 62.8 million travelers visited Indiana in 2006.
Lynn Lucas, executive director of Columbus Area Visitors Center, said the Columbus area is leading the way with tourist-boosting plans that already have affected local communities.
Vision 20/20 is a sweeping plan for downtown redevelopment that includes a newly built Commons, a parking garage, two new sports complexes, restaurants and stores.
The Visitors Center and the city Parks and Recreation Department have attracted USSSA tournament sporting events through intense marketing. They have maintained those tournaments and expanded them thanks to their hospitality efforts.
The sports tourism industry has become so popular here and across the country that Vision 20/20 calls for a separate indoor and outdoor sports complex, intended to attract more sporting events and tourist dollars.
That's where hotels fill a vital role.
Lucas said that during USSSA events, for example, the Visitors Center quickly books hotel rooms in this county and has to book in other counties to accommodate everyone.
She said that's a shame: When Columbus visitors sleep elsewhere, they take their money with them, hurting this county's restaurants and stores and ultimately holding back an economy that is begging to grow.
"We certainly could use more hotel rooms here in the county," she said. "We have one of the highest occupancy rates in all the state."
Sports and business
Sporting events occur through much of the year, and this county's large companies attract corporate visitors who stay weeks or months at a time.
Columbus and the surrounding area easily can sustain all the new hotels, Lucas said. The proof lies with hotel developers, who have spent millions of dollars on this economy because they like what they see.
Dora Hotels of Fishers owns the Charwood Corporate Suites, which had a two-building expansion this summer, and Comfort Inn, once a Ramada that mostly was rebuilt inside.
Both are on or near Jonathan Moore Pike.
Dora also will open a new Hotel Indigo across from Columbus Post Office and a Candlewood Suites that will be part of the rebuilt Commons.
Cindy Waddle, the company's regional manager, said her bosses see potential here.
"I can't say enough about how impressed I am," she said. "We believe very firmly in this market, and we believe all of our hotels will do well."
Hotel Indigo and Comfort Inn are catered to people who stay a few days only. Candlewood Suites and Charwood Corporate Suites cater to people who stay at least seven days.
Jan Sprague owns the Hilton Garden Inn, the fifth hotel in the Taylorsville-Edinburgh area that also has a Hampton Inn, Red Roof Inn, Best Western and Holiday Inn Express.
Sprague Regional Manager Andrea Stewart said that activity bolstered by Edinburgh Premium Outlets has caused that part of the county to expand rapidly.
"The hotels right off the exit do a phenomenal job," Stewart said, referring to Exist 76 off Interstate 65. "We also have all those sports tournaments.
"The demand is there."
Hilton Garden Inn caters to people who stay two or three days, Stewart said.
Officials with the local Breeden Investment Group, which wants to build the new Columbus Residence Inn, were unavailable for comment.
A Marriott Hotels franchise would be three stories and have 80 units.