R.I. tourism shows gain on ’13 so far

Customers are running up healthy restaurant and bar tabs at Rhode Island establishments this year, with state residents better off for it.
With one month still to be tabulated, the Ocean State is poised to finish fiscal 2014 with its highest meal and beverage tax collections since the eve of the financial crisis in 2007.
Through the end of May, the second-to-last month of the fiscal year and most recent available, the state’s local 1 percent meal and beverage tax had netted $20.14 million so far this year, a 5.2 percent increase from the same period last fiscal year.
Perhaps that’s only to be expected.
As much as any industry segment, hospitality spending tends to track consumer confidence and the health of the broader economy.
Still, industry leaders are pointing to the benefits of some favorable circumstances and coordinated efforts leading Rhode Island hospitality businesses ahead.
“There’s a lot of pent-up demand,” said Dale J. Venturini, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Hospitality Association. “And there’s been a lot of really aggressive marketing by the [Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau] and all the local tourism councils. There’s a lot of promotion happening.”
Through the recession, hospitality was one of the few industries that didn’t go through a major decline, and it has grown steadily, without double dips, unlike many other sectors.
In the heady days of fiscal 2007, meals-tax collections soared 6.9 percent year over year and then contracted a modest 0.4 percent the next year while the rest of the economy was collapsing.
Even in fiscal 2010, meal and beverage tax collections increased 0.9 percent and the next year collections increased 4.9 percent, the second strongest increase before the current pace.
And tax collections are only one indicator of the long-term trend in hospitality industry growth.
According to seasonally adjusted employment figures from the R.I. Department of Labor and Training, the 55,500 leisure and hospitality jobs in the state during February were a record high. June had 55,000 leisure and hospitality jobs.
At Easy Entertaining Inc. in Providence, which launched as a catering company in 2006 and added a café in the Rising Sun Mills in the fall of 2012, owner and chef Kaitlyn Roberts said conditions aren’t back to where they were six years ago, but are improving. “Catering was largely recession proof – people are always going to have weddings – so we never saw a loss, but it has picked up a lot now,” Roberts said.
Along with corporate clients, Roberts said the lucrative wedding business, although it never went away in the recession, is getting a serious boost from the state’s legalization of same-sex marriage.
Even before the law passed, Easy Entertaining would get one or two “commitment” ceremonies, but the past year alone has seen six same-sex weddings, plus more anniversary events.
“It has been huge for us,” Roberts said about the Marriage Equality Act.
Like restaurant tabs, catering bills for events like weddings also include the 1 percent local meal and beverage tax, which is collected with sales tax and then remitted to municipal governments.
Through May, Rhode Island’s local hotel-tax collections have seen a 5.4 percent increase from the same period in fiscal 2013 after rising 5.3 percent last year.
High occupancy rates have encouraged a number of new hotel plans in recent years, including the already open Dean Hotel in Providence, a proposal from The Procaccianti Group for an extended-stay hotel in Providence, early discussions on an Exchange Street hotel in Providence, a planned replacement for the Knights Inn in Middletown, approved plans for an Apponaug Water Development LLC hotel in Warwick and the now-on-hold plans for the Exchange Hotel in Newport.
Additionally, Venturini said conventions, such as the Unitarian Universalist Church coming to Providence, already have given Rhode Island a big boost in 2014.
Venturini said there is also clever innovation at work, such as the increasing use of popular, lucrative small-plate dishes and independent valet-parking services.
However, it’s Rhode Island, so even real optimism is cautious.
“We are not going crazy, and of course I think the economy is part of it, but we’re at least going in the right direction,” Venturini said. •

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