Holiday Inn Still No. 1, Carnall Hall Tops in RPR

The Region’s Largest Hotels

Click here for the list of the region’s largest hotels.(Lists require Adobe Acrobat viewer. Click here for a free copy.)

The Embassy Suites in Rogers apparently took some business away from area hotels last year as it carved $4.35 million out of the market, but the Holiday Inn Northwest Arkansas managed to stay on top of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s annual hotels list with room revenue of $4.68 million.

That’s a 3.1 percent dip for the Holiday Inn, which had led the region in room revenue since it was built in Springdale in 1989.

But the Embassy Suites has made an impressive showing since it opened in May 2003 just 15 miles down Interstate 540 from the Holiday Inn.

The Embassy Suites had a 12.1 percent increase in room revenue to $4.35 in 2004, according to Rogers hotel tax records. But the numbers are skewed because it’s a comparison of 12 months in 2004 against the eight months it was open in 2003.

The Embassy Suites brought in a whopping $7.4 million in gross revenue last year, which includes banquets and food service along with room revenue. We exclude food sales from the rankings for an apples-to-apples comparison because only a handful of the area’s largest hotels have banquet services.

The top two hotels in room revenue are both owned by John Q. Hammons Hotels LLC of Springfield, Mo., so the competition is probably friendly. Both hotels got a new manager this year. Brian Sims replaced Kevin Smith at the Holiday Inn, and David Lang replaced Robert Kisabeth at the Embassy Suites.

Hammons plans to build a 152-room addition to the Embassy Suites in Rogers, along with a 125,000-SF convention center. Both are slated to open in the fall of 2006.

Six of the area’s top 10 hotels lost room revenue last year, thanks at least in part to the Embassy Suites entering the market.

The 58 hotels on our list had total revenue of $68.56 million, 6.9 percent more than the $64.14 million last year. For inclusion in the list, we used a cutoff point of $200,000 per year for room revenue. Of the 58 hotels on our list, 17 were in Fayetteville, 14 in Springdale, 12 in Bentonville, 11 in Rogers and four in Siloam Springs.

Revenue Per Room

When ranked by revenue per room, the 49-room Inn at Carnall Hall was No. 1 with $26,531 per room for 2004 (see chart). The hotel on the University of Arkansas campus is 101 years old. It was the only hotel in the top 10 list, ranked by revenue per room, that is locally owned and not part of a chain. Carnall Inn Development Co. has a 41-year lease on the historic building. The LLC consists of Richard Alexander, Rob Merry-Ship and Ted and Leslie Belden, all of Fayetteville. Alexander and John Nock are partners in the $25 million Mountain Inn project in downtown Fayetteville. The century-old, 60,000-SF, seven story building was demolished this year. A new 12-story hotel is scheduled to be built on the site by late 2006.

The next four slots in our ranking of revenue per room were all Springdale hotels: Hampton Inn & Suites, Residence Inn by Marriott, Holiday Inn Northwest Arkansas and Doubletree Club Hotel.

The next five in our top 10 list were all located in Benton County. Four hotels in the top 10 list by revenue per room were Marriott hotels. Six of the top 10 hotels in that list had fewer than 100 rooms.