Hotels arise to serve growing guest list
The number of visitors to Butler County continues to grow every year.
They come for a variety of reasons: Business, recreation, weddings, the Big Butler Fair, the Butler Farm Show, graduations, the Bantam Heritage Jeep Festival, and more.
Much of the credit for attracting out-of-county visitors goes to the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau.
Tourist interest and business expansion have led to the increase in hotel rooms in the county from about 1,500 in 2011 to an expected 2,000 by early 2013, according to Jack Cohen, bureau executive director.
The June 14 opening of the Hilton Garden Inn in Cranberry Township and the opening last year of both the Fairfield Inn and Suites in Slippery Rock and the Candlewood Suites in Cranberry Township as well as the construction of another 125 rooms in a Courtyard Marriott in Cranberry Woods will boost the county's room count close to 2,000 by early 2013.
The Days Inn on Route 8 in Butler Township is one of the oldest hotels in the county, and Rene Conner, director of sales for the hotel, said business just keeps coming her way.
The hotel has 143 rooms, as well as convention and meeting rooms, a bar and a restaurant.
“We're always looking for more rooms,” she said.
Tiffany Jassel, general manager of the Hilton Garden Inn, and her regional manager, Michael Gulotty, both said the owner, Vista Host, is excited about the continued development in Cranberry and southwestern Butler County.
“Even in the two months I have been living here, more development has been started or planned,” Jassel said.
Having lived in several areas of the country for Hilton, Jassel said the growth in this region is unlike anything she's seen before.
“It's not just the business visitor or the weekend tourist. We have been getting calls for weddings, bar mitzvahs, community events, and we're not even open yet,” she said before the opening.
Tammy Schaum, general manager of the Fairfield Inn and Suites in Slippery Rock, said her hotel has about eight months experience in dealing with guests.
“We haven't been here long enough to say we've noticed any trends, but we have been booked almost every weekend since opening,” Schaum said.
The hotel's first weekend open was a trial-by-fire because it came at the same time as Slippery Rock University's homecoming.
She said the hotel, like its counterparts in Cranberry, is getting a smattering of all sorts of clientele — business, parents and students of SRU, Grove City College and Westminster College, as well as visitors who plan on kayaking the Slippery Rock Creek, stopping by Moraine State Park or hiking the North Country Trail.
Could the Slippery Rock area use more hotels? Schaum said that would be nice, but maybe after the Fairfield Inn has a chance to establish itself as the first place guests call for rooms.
“I'd like a little more time before we got another hotel, but having someplace to send people when we are booked would be a nice thing to have,”she said.Cohen said there is a need for additional hotel rooms across Butler County with a special need in Butler and Buffalo Township.Cabot Resources has been working with Buffalo Township officials to build a hotel behind the Park-N-Ride lot at the corner of Route 356 and Silverville Road.It would be across Route 356 from a proposed industrial-business park.A hotel in the Buffalo Township-Freeport area is needed as business development along the Route 356 and Route 28 corridor continues.There are fewer than 80 rooms in Kittanning to the north — Holiday Inn Express and the Quality Inn Royle both in West Kittanning — and 113 in the Clarion Hotel in Tarentum across the Allegheny River to the south.“This means people have to go to Butler or closer to Pittsburgh for hotel rooms when they come to Buffalo Township,” Cohen said.“As for more rooms, we do have a need and we (the tourism bureau) can help fill them,” he added.The tourism bureau is financed through a county-wide 3-percent tax on every bed in every hotel, motel and bed and breakfast in the county.The increase in visitors to the county is reflected in the bureau's budget, which topped $1 million in 2011-2012 for the first time.
