Richmond’s first Westin opens

The Richmond area's newest upscale lodging, The Westin Richmond Hotel, has opened at West Broad Street and Forest Avenue just off Interstate 64.

The 250-room hotel, which opened last week, is the first Westin in the Richmond area. Located in the Reynolds Crossing office development, it aims to attract business travelers visiting nearby corporate offices, such as the Altria Group Inc. headquarters.

"It is a great location as far as being equidistant from downtown and Short Pump, right off I-64 and Broad Street," said Feliks Schwartz, the hotel's general manager. "I don't think it gets much better than that."

While the target customer is a business traveler, "we cater to families, too," Schwartz said. Room rates range from $139 to $159 on weekends and $189 to $209 on weekdays.

Westin Hotels is a division of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., a publicly traded company with about 900 properties in more than 100 countries and 155,000 employees. The local hotel employs 75 people.

"It is significant to have a Westin come into any market. It's quite prestigious," said Jack Berry, president and chief executive officer of the Richmond Metropolitan Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The Westin is one of nine hotels to open in the region this year, adding about 960 rooms and bringing the region's total to about 16,300, according to Berry.

Schwartz said the Westin is the region's first new, full-service hotel in about eight years, offering amenities such as an indoor pool and fitness room; a restaurant, bar and lounge; and 10,000 square feet of meeting space.

With more hotels under construction, the Richmond region will get 1,000 or more additional rooms next year, Berry said.

But the hotel industry is feeling the effects of the recession, as business and leisure travel have slowed. The lodging industry saw declines in several key measures, such as occupancy rates and revenue per available room, in September and October, according to Smith Travel Research, an industry research firm. Also, the number of hotel rooms under construction dropped about 7 percent in November from the same month in 2007, the group reported.

Because of the credit crunch, "it can be safely predicted that new franchises and new businesses coming onto the market will be much slower" nationally in 2009, said Mahmood Khan, a professor of hospitality and tourism management at Virginia Tech.

"Westin has a pretty strong business model, and they should do well," he said. "Except they are in a higher-end market, which is being affected by the slowdown."

Berry said the recent decline in gas prices is a positive sign for the Richmond area's hotel industry. The region tends to draw overnight visitors not just from business travel but from tourism, sporting events, conventions and traffic along Interstates 95 and 64.

Starwood reported a profit of $113 million for the third quarter of 2008, down from $129 million in the same period of 2007. Revenue was $1.53 billion, down about $5 million from the same period of 2007. The company said its revenue per available room, a key gauge used in the hotel industry, at hotels owned in the third quarter of 2007 and 2008 in North America decreased 1.2 percent this year from a year earlier.
Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or .