For their visit to Asheville, one couple booked a house through an online service but were surprised when it turned out to be a double-wide trailer deep in the country. They quickly decamped for a room at A Bed of Roses Bed Breakfast in Montford.
“They were relieved to come to us,” said Emily McIntosh, who owns the inn with her husband Bill and also serves as president of the Asheville Bed Breakfast Association.
Guests prize bed-and-breakfasts as quiet refuges that offer only pleasant surprises. The inns themselves, though, face uncertainty in the shifting landscape of local lodging.
Five hotels, promising more than 500 new rooms, are under construction in downtown Asheville, and short-term rentals remain popular despite recent tweaks to city policy.
As the number of rooms keeps growing, it’s possible “to reach a point where there’s saturation,” said Kris Ullmer, executive director of the Professional Association of Innkeepers International, a bed-and-breakfasts trade group based in Charleston, South Carolina. The result, she said, would be “pricing wars, and everyone will suffer.”
That prospect seems distant at the moment, as Asheville rides a tourism boom.
In July, total sales for Buncombe County BBs stood at $1.8 million, a rise of 15 percent from the same month a year before, according to figures provided by Jennifer Durrett of the Buncombe County Finance Department. Forty-eight bed-and-breakfasts contributed to that total, one fewer than the year before.
Sales for hotels and motels totaled $25.8 million in July, also a rise of 15 percent from the prior year.
The local BB association doesn’t compile statistics on occupancy rates, but vacancies appear to be few. With the fall leaf season approaching, many hotels and inns are already fully booked for October weekends.
“I’ve already got people panicking, saying ‘Where am I going to stay?'” said Nancy Merrill, who owns Applewood Manor Inn in Montford with her husband Larry. Some people turned away from downtown hotels look into BBs instead, Merrill said, and discover them to be “a better deal financially.”
Most guests turn to BBs not to save money but because they prefer the atmosphere.
“Asheville has a reputation for being a bed-and-breakfast town,” McIntosh said. “The people who stay with us are looking for a BB. You’re staying in a beautiful home. Each room is decorated differently. The owner is here all the time, acting as a concierge for your trip. It’s a fun experience. You get to eat a wonderful breakfast with other people.”
Merrill delights in converting people who are dubious about the BB experience. “We get a lot of first-timers,” she said. “People worry they’re walking into someone’s home, and they’re shocked by how much privacy they have.”
The innkeeper isn’t “lurking around the corner saying ‘Don’t touch that!'” Merrill said, but instead serves as a helpful guide to the town.
Some of Applewood Manor’s most frequent guests are “single women who feel a little safer than staying in a hotel,” she added.
Innkeepers point out that, unlike many short-term rentals, BBs are insured, licensed, and inspected for health and safety.
“There are reasons why the health department comes by,” Merrill said. “There’s a reason we pay lodging taxes.”
The Professional Association of Innkeepers International clearly is concerned about competition from short-term rentals.
In a recent statement, the association said licensed inns “continue to lose market share and pricing power” because of Airbnb and similar companies.
Ullmer, the group’s director, has “no doubt” that online rentals are hurting both BBs and hotels. “We’re very much united with hotels in our stand against unlicensed properties,” she said. “Properties that are not licensed and insured can undercut legitimate businesses because they don’t have the overhead.”
Asheville innkeepers emphasize that they offers guests peace of mind.
“You know that we’re safe,” McIntosh said.
Changes in the public’s travel habits have forced all players in the industry to adjust. “People are tending to book closer to the time of their trip,” Ullmer said. “They’re driving in their cars, looking for their next destination en route. Spontaneity is not a bad thing.” Innkeepers must maintain a strong presence online, especially with mobile and recommendation sites, to capture those last-minute reservations.
Visitors driving toward Asheville will certainly find more lodging options in coming years. Well into the construction phase are the 140-room Hyatt Place on Haywood Street and the 151-room Hilton Garden Inn behind the Buncombe County Courthouse. The 120-room AC Hotel is rising at the corner of Broadway and College streets, and the building that once housed Kostas’ Menswear near the Grove Arcade will soon be demolished to make way for a 136-room Cambria Suites. Asheville Foundry Inn, at Eagle and Market streets, will be a Hilton brand and have 92 rooms.
Will this glut of new hotel rooms hurt the local BB business? “It very well might,” McIntosh said, though she remained confident that visitors will always be drawn to the personal touch that bed-and-breakfasts offer.
Merrill welcomed the new rivals. “I am a believer in competition,” she said. “Some people like hotels, some people like motels, some people like Airbnb, and some people like bed-and-breakfasts.” The more lodging options there are at various prices, the better it is for Asheville’s future. “More people will want to come,” she said.
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