Nancy Turner is the innkeeper at the Bell House Inn in Glens Falls. Last year was the busiest the inn has been in 17 years, she saida.
Locally-owned inns and bed-and-breakfasts are seeing an uptick in bookings for this summer, another indication that COVID’s grip on vacation travel is loosening.
“The summer is looking great,” says Darryl Leggieri, President of Discover Saratoga. “Bookings are up for most of our lodging partners. All of our assets are fully open including SPAC, the racetrack, and Saratoga Casino. People just need to get away, and now they’re able to do that.”
For several proprietors, the rebound in bookings began last year and has not stopped.
“Last summer was crazy,” said Nancy Turner, Innkeeper at the five-room Bell House Inn in Glens Falls. “It was the busiest we’ve been in 17 years.”
That momentum continued through the winter for Turner who has hosted guests every weekend since the start of January.
Matthew DiCarlo, who runs the Springwater B&B in Saratoga with his mother, Leslie, and grandmother, Lynn, had a similar experience in 2021.
“Last year, a weekend getaway to a cool little town was much more appealing than a lengthy trip to Europe or even Florida. In that environment, Saratoga became an especially attractive destination,” DiCarlo said. He added that the Springwater is looking “very busy” for the upcoming spring and summer seasons.
While the increased activity has been welcomed by these small businesses, the scars from the pandemic remain.
The Bell House Inn, for example, closed from April 2020 through April 2021.
“We lost a whole year of business,” Turner said. Even those businesses that stayed open had to limit their guests due to COVID restrictions and the extra time required to properly clean rooms. Those lost revenues will be difficult to quickly recoup.
But COVID did bring with it some silver linings in the form of new approaches and new business models that are likely to continue.
Danielle Meyers at the Old Saratoga Inn on Broad Street in Schuylerville started focusing more on weekly stays last year when the cleaning demands for daily rentals made it difficult to quickly turn over rooms.
“We essentially flipped our model from daily rentals to extended stays. That’s how we survived, and we’re mostly sticking with that approach for now,” she said.
For Linda Merlino at the Lamplight Inn B&B in Lake Luzerne, COVID forced them to revamp the way they serve breakfast. In order to control the number of people in the dining room, patrons ordered off a menu the night before and selected a time to eat in the morning.
“With guests now pre-ordering the night before, we know exactly what to prepare, and there is no wasted food,” she said.
Amid all the positive news, there is some potential trouble looming. Inflation, high gas prices, staffing issues, and the ever-present worry of another COVID outbreak all represent threats to the surging prosperity of the local tourism economy.
But for now, most innkeepers are optimistic about the year ahead and the long-term future. DiCarlo believes that the effects of COVID on leisure travel may be long-lasting.
He said: “I think tourism is changing from going on one big blowout vacation to taking several little ones.”