Courtesy Sagamore Hotel fact sheet (2020)
The Lake George Convention and Visitors Bureau is promoting the area primarily to small groups and associations and focusing on the second and third quarter of next year. January to March 2021 has largely been written out of the group-gathering picture due to the threats of a post-holiday spike in COVID-19, said Gina Mintzer, executive director of the Lake George Regional Chamber of Commerce and CVB.
Representatives from the Queensbury Hotel in Glens Falls and the Sagamore Resort in Bolton Landing said they too were focusing on April or later.
“We’re focusing on what we can do,” Mintzer said.
The CVB is looking primarily to groups organized in New York and to groups doing business in Albany, hoping to attract smaller subsections or regional segments of larger groups in the state. National and international conventions coming to Lake George in 2021 are just out-of-the-question.
To make the lake more attractive and to help businesses, the CVB has the Meet Safely NOW and Save Program. The program offers free audio-visual services if a group can reserve 50 rooms in local hotels. The incentive is meant to keep Lake George atop the pile of choices that groups might be considering.
Mintzer went further in an interview yesterday saying that the CVB might help with staff at the meeting or might work on some public relations for the event.
“If we can take some of those burdens off, it might be more favorable to come to Lake George,” Mintzer said.
Lori Rehm, the director of sales at the Sagamore Resort in Bolton Landing, said large groups have already cancelled into May and June. Weddings have pushed from spring to fall or even to 2022.
“We are actually considering our own incentive where we’re mentioning [the CVB program],” she said. The Sagamore’s sales staff is looking toward groups from the Albany area, groups that might book just a month or two ahead of time and whose members do not have to ride in a plane.
It’s just those sorts of groups that Mintzer at the CVB wants to see, as well.
“You’re going to see the smaller stuff come back first,” Rehm said. The COVID restrictions on groups size--still at 50 people maximum as set by Gov. Andrew Cuomo--must relent, but that will only happen with a coronavirus vaccine. Both have to be hand in hand, she said. Only then will conventions of 500 to 700 people return.
However, restrictions are just half the problem.
“It’s not just ‘Can we do it? Can we do it safely?’ it’s ‘Will the customer feel comfortable, too?’,” said Tyler Herrick the general manager of the Queensbury Hotel.
Rehm agreed. It’s about personal comfort.
Herrick said the incentives might not convince a group to meet, but it gets them to open the email to see what’s available. The Queensbury has a number of incentives they are offering.
He said, if hotels and conference centers can make it to April, when he thinks people will feel more comfortable, then they’ll be somewhat back to normal.
This is just for group reservations. Bookings at the Sagamore individually--that is, “leisure bookings”--were strong all summer and fall and into next year, Rehm said.
Herrick said, bookings and reservations at the Queensbury are “up about 20% from the same time last year.”