The way hotel manager Tom Grippi explains it, the key word is overflow. Grippi and other hoteliers whose inns are bursting at the seams no doubt are thankful for this year's abundance of travelers and tourists. As demand for rooms intensifies and hotel construction lags, prices are rising - portending a banner year for the hotel industry. The room shortage exists in destination cities such as San Francisco and Boston, as well as in regional hot spots such as Santa Fe, N.M., the Mississippi coastline, and the Twin Cities. Kelly Wilson, manager of the Marina Inn in San Francisco's hip Marina district, says she spent much of this past holiday weekend turning away weary tourists frustrated by the city's tight hotel market.
People come in here after wandering the streets for most of the day looking for a room.
When there is something big happening here, there just aren't enough rooms. In Whitefish, Mont., Nancy Miller, assistant manager of the Good Medicine Lodge, received a spate of phone calls from prospective guests wanting to stay at the inn over Thanksgiving - but it doesn't reopen until early December. We're turning people away. Explanations for the upturn in business and leisure travel revolve around a generally healthy economy. But lack of hotel construction during much of the 1980s is equally responsible for the tight squeeze between supply and demand, experts say.