Springfield, Missouri, is experiencing a boom in hotel business so far in 2016, and it appears one big reason for it is Route 66.
According to the KY3 station in town:
The Convention and Visitors bureau says the number of visitors so far…and the number of hotel rooms occupied, has surpassed last year.
Tracy Kimberlin the President of the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau says “we broke 100-million dollars in room sales alone last year. That doesn’t count the money they spend shopping and eating of that nature while they’re in town…so a huge economic impact.”
The first two months of the year, room sales rose nearly 10%. ” Anytime the demand goes up the hotels have the opportunity to discount less to attract business so the average daily rates go up and the room sales go up,” says Kimberlin.
Springfield has embraced its Route 66 heritage much more in recent years, with the newly developed Birthplace of Route 66 Park, a successful Route 66 exhibit at the local history museum and the burgeoning Birthplace of Route 66 Festival.
It’s clear the Route 66 Economic Impact Report, released in 2012, made a big impression on the city. The prospect of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars being funneled into the community each year proved too much to ignore.
On a related note, the Cruisin’ with Lincoln on Route 66 Visitors Center in Bloomington, Illinois, reported 18,000 visitors in its recently completed first year and made a $445,000 impact on the local economy, according to WMBD-TV. It, too, largely was inspired by the Route 66 impact report after the metro area largely ignored it for years.
There’s money in that there Mother Road.
(Image of the Rest Haven Motel on Route 66 in Springfield, Missouri, in 2006 by Brian Butko via Flickr)
Rest Haven sign no longer has the AAA oval on it…