Detroit Foundation Hotel
Not so long ago the mention of tourists in Detroit seemed like the setup to a bad joke. Things have changed.
Kirk Pinho of Crain's Detroit Business reports:
Ten years ago, Detroit's hotel market struggled mightily with an average occupancy rate between 46 and 49 percent.
Today, that number is in the low 70s, thanks partly to an apparently growing perception of the Motor City as a tourist destination, along with a rebound in the local and national economies.
"It's all legit," said Michael O'Callaghan, executive vice president and COO of the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau. "We talk to a lot of meeting centers and leisure visitors to metro Detroit and the sentiment throughout the country for the most part is the buzz is that Detroit has become a great story, with the city kind of rising from the ashes and that it really is a place to see."
