St. Mary’s County Tourism Asset Review

Overview of Assets A broad spectrum of activities and assets compose the St. Mary’s County visitor landscape. There are more than 100 sites and physical assets, including more than 25 public parks, 16 public landings, 15 trails for hiking and biking, 15 marinas, 10 historic sites and museums, and a range of agri-tourism experiences. The chart below illustrates the breadth of physical assets to be evaluated in determining the priorities for the Master Plan.

5 State Parks

20 county parks

15 trails for biking and hiking

10 historic sites

15 marinas

20 agritiourism experciences

12 hotels/1,267 rooms

5 bed and breakfasts

3 Scenic byways

500 miles of shoreline

16 water access points

10 private event venues

St. Mary’s County Tourism Assets 3 local farm to table restauarants

2 Wineries

15 wedding venues

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Overview of Activities The variety of activities that are available in St. Mary’s County is equally as great.

St. Mary’s Activities

Kayaking Paddle Trails Racing Sports Arts & Boarding Culture

Sailing Hunting Fishing Biking Hiking Heritage Tourism

Culinary Lodging Boating Canoeing Horseback Golf Riding

Beach Going Birding Events Shopping

Because there are so many activities and assets in St. Mary’s County, setting priorities for support and investment is necessary to achieve the highest return and move the County toward becoming a strong tourism destination.

Asset and Activity Analysis Assets and activities are organized as follows:

1. The Hotel Economy 2. Farm and Food 3. Events 4. Amateur, Youth and Competitive Sports 5. Water-Related Activities 6. Trails 7. Outdoor Activities 8. Birding and Hunting 9. Museums and Historic Sites 10. Parks 11. Arts and Culture

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The Hotel Economy The nature and variety of hotel and lodging properties play important roles in decision making by leisure travelers. The mix of lodging types and style of business is a key factor in defining markets that will deliver the most return on investment. Regardless of which market — business or leisure travel, group travel or family travel — overnight stays drive spending at a destination. Overnight visitors also increase tax revenues. Stimulating new hotel and lodging development is an important aspect of a tourism master plan and the future of St. Mary’s County.

Hotel Inventory Currently there are 1,267 hotel rooms in St. Mary’s County, most of which are at limited-service hotels.

Hotels in St. Mary’s County Country Inn & Suites, California La Quinta Inns & Suites California Red Roof Inn & Suites, California Super 8, Lexington Park Holiday Inn Express & Suites, California Charlotte Hall Motel, Charlotte Hall Executive Inn and Suites, Leonardtown Comfort Inn & Suites, Lexington Park Home2 Suites, Lexington Park TownePlace Suites, Lexington Park Americas Best Value Inn & Suites, Lexington Park Hampton Inn, Lexington Park Fairfield Inn, Lexington Park Extended Stay America, Lexington Park Ascend Collection Island Inn & Suites, St. George Island

Current Hotel Climate The majority of properties in the County are limited-service hotels built to serve base-related business travel. However, because of their dependency on base-related travel, rates and occupancy are overly dependent on this single market. Drops in business travel due to federal travel cutbacks and Sequestration in 2013 resulted in a decrease in occupancy as well as in the Average Daily Room Rate (ADR) charged by hotels. This in turn, has affected the government per diem rate that hotels may charge for federal travel. While it is encouraging that recent data shows demand is up 16.3% for 2015 compared to 2014, ADR has not risen with occupancy. Local hoteliers do not believe occupancy or ADR is high enough to warrant additional limited-service hotels in this market. Furthermore, the current occupancy levels and descending ADR will c