Though Athens has many hotels throughout the county, the number of visitors to the city and university often far outnumbers that of available hotel rooms
If Athens guests wanted to book a hotel tomorrow they’d have a number of choices, from national chains and locally owned hospitality services to smoking or non-smoking rooms.
But, try and book a room for any of Ohio University’s special weekends and it’s about a year too late.
Currently, there are 599 hotel rooms available in Athens, not including housing companies that rent out available rooms if any are available. For the 2012-13 academic year there were 7,735 degrees awarded to OU main campus students, all with families looking to see their child walk at graduation. Tens of thousands of guests swarm for the Halloween Block Party and a body of more than 22,000 students all inviting their moms, dads, siblings and fellow graduates to special event weekends.
Athens doesn’t have enough hotel beds to accommodate all of those people.
When it’s not a special event weekend
With a small amount of hotels in the area and thousands of students graduating every year, it makes people wonder why building more hotels in the area isn’t a top priority.
Mark Samuels, general manager of the Athens Hampton Inn, 986 E. State St., said that there aren’t any more hotels because when it’s not a special weekend event they can’t book the rooms.
“We make money all throughout the year but if there’s too many hotels in the area, there’s only so much business coming into Athens and it makes it less for everybody who runs a hotel,” Samuels said.
The Fairfield Inn by Marriott on State Street, which is slated to open in April, is the newest addition to the list of Athens hotels.
Out of the 599 rooms available in Athens, 139 of those belong to the Ohio University Inn & Conference Center, making it the largest hotel in the Athens area.
The hotel profits funnel revenue into the 1804 Fund, which puts money toward university research.
When your lease is up
For graduation, many seniors run into an ending lease agreement. Sycamore Place Apartments is one of many rental businesses in the area that ends a tenant’s lease agreement on May 2, the very same day as undergraduate commencement.
“Well, we only have a few days to get our apartments ready for people who are going to summer session,” said Margaret Shafer, property manager. “We have to clean, shampoo carpets, do maintenance; we have a lot of work and we have a lot of apartments that we have to get ready.”
Summer session begins on the following Monday, however, if something came up for the current tenant, arrangements can be made, Shafer said.
The Summit at Coates Run, 363 Richland Ave., offers unused apartment units that parents can rent out for $225 a night for a three bedroom and $300 for a four bedroom.
“For the entire year they’re available for residents’ parents who want to come down and visit their kids, or their families,” said Carl Franz, lease manager at The Summit.
The limited number of rooms in Athens sometimes causes tense phone calls, said Glenn Smith, an employee at Days Inn, Athens, 330 Columbus Road.
It’s cause for confrontation over the phone, but he said he tries to accommodate families as much as he can by giving recommendations outside of Athens.
“We deal with cranky parents,” Samuels said. “When they can’t get a reservation there’s only (so many) hotel rooms in Athens, and how many thousands of students graduate?”
When you’re having a good time
“I’ve been doing this for 10 years so I think (my favorite memory) would be catching the young man running around the hallways naked,” said Glena Smith, the general manager for the Athens Baymont Inn & Suites, 20 Home St. “He got locked out of his room ... When you work night shift you see a lot of crazy things.”
During Halloween, Days Inn likes to assure the safety of its guests by offering a shuttle service to the block party.
“They just kept jumping in by the time we had it going down the road we had 15 people in one vehicle,” Glenn Smith said.
Glenn said he was pulled over, but instead of being ticketed, the police applauded him for keeping drunk drivers off the road. The officer just asked him to slow down.
“And those weekends when you have moms or dads, parents, Homecoming or graduation, usually it’s a celebratory weekend everyone’s having a good time and looking for a (good time),” he said.
When you’re booking a room
The OU Inn has its own system for booking its rooms.
A lottery is done for call-in dates, in which those with their name in are chosen at random. A 12-hour calling period is held to have thousands of parents trying to find a room, instead of having them come to the inn all at once, Burke said.
Burke said that this enables people to call in at their leisure throughout the entire day and gets a little bit more of an equal opportunity advantage for a hotel room.
Days Inn sold out within the first day that it offered rooms for graduation and 100 more rooms would sell easily, Glenn said. Days Inn sells rooms for special events 50 weeks in advance.
“(Smoking rooms are) actually pretty popular throughout the year but for special event weekends they’re usually the last ones (booked),” Glenn said. “We’re kind of a blue-collared hotel; we get a lot of construction workers and blue-collar workers. They don’t want to go to some dive, but they also don’t want stay at Holiday Inn or somewhere that charges $130 a night.”
The Baymont Inn went non-smoking in May, which Glena said makes the rooms sell easier depending on what your business is.
“Often times you find out that the parents didn’t know anything until you were already sold out,” Glena said.
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