CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Seeking hotels for summer vacation? You’ll probably notice that the price per night is creeping higher than usual.
Fortunately for Corpus Christi, the city’s hotels are fairing better than the rest of Texas.
“Best year ever, by all intents and purposes in tourism,” Brett Oetting, CEO of Visit Corpus Christi said.
While browsing hotel prices on the internet, you’ll come across prices as low as $49 and as high as $181 in Corpus Christi.
But San Antonio, on the other hand, the most expensive rooms could be over $600.
“A lot of the very large cities were struggling to get through COVID. So, they have a longer way to go this year,” Oetting said.
Corpus Christi is coming off a record-breaking tourism year in terms of visitors and hotel occupancy tax collected. That's what Oetting attributes to Corpus Christi's cheaper hotel prices.
Despite being cheaper than other major Texas cities, through April, hotel prices are up over 17 percent from this time last year.
Another reason for the increase in the competition with short-term rentals.
Those vacation rental prices are on the rise when you add up all the fees. So, hotels take advantage of that and bump their prices up, but not so much to pass up short-term rentals.
“The good news is we have so many people wanting to come here that there is a need for all of the hotels to be ready to go," said Oetting. "And all of them experience increases in occupancy and business these summer months.”
While high gas prices are deterring some from travel, a study done by OnePoll said 70 percent of families are preparing for a vacation in the next 18 months.
With Texas being such a large state, the city of Corpus Christi will see visitors a little closer to home, making weekend drives from other parts of the state.
"I don’t think we’re going to see as much of the farther out-of-state travelers and the international travelers over the next couple of months," Oetting said. "Just because those high travel prices.”
Hotel prices are expected to remain stagnant through the summer, but continue to expect higher rates on summer weekends.
Oetting said it's hard to have record-breaking stats year after year. But he expects this year to be the second-best tourism year for Corpus Christi.
We reached out to speak to several hotels, but they were unavailable.
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