The Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau reported record tourism growth in the past year, and will focus energy this year on increasing the number of hotel rooms in the Manatee County market. “In the next three to five years, we believe 800 to 1,000 rooms could be added,” said Elliott Falcione, executive director of the BACVB.

The county right now has roughly 6,200 hotel and motel rooms in its total rental pool, a number that represents only 15 percent of the lodging places for the 2.92 million visitors that came to Manatee County during the year. Falcione said any growth in the number of rooms would be useful. The market saw a 2.7 percent increase in total visitors over the year 2013, and expenditiures by visitors in commercial lodging jumped up to $451.64 million, up 12.1 percent. The buruea report, done by Dr. Walter Klages of Data Research Status, calculated a $994.74-million total economic impact from tourism in the county.

John Osbourne, Planning and Zoning official for Manatee County, said there are large swaths of Manatee County where new hotels are allowed to be built right now. Around 2,000 hotel rooms are approval already, and only need construction plans submit to the county for construction to be permitted. “We are very committed in efforts to have more sites available for hotel sites,” he said.

Falcione said the bureau is inviting bids to build a hotel attacked to the Manatee County Convention Center in Palmetto, and seeking out redevelopment opportunities for private builders to construct hotels in downtown Bradenton and new development opportunities for hotels in places like Lakewood Ranch. On the barrier islands, he said hotel space is largely built out by comparison, but noted developer Ed Chiles in building a hotel in Anna Maria. 

David Teitelbaum, a hotel developer in Manatee County, said he considered the market assessment “spot on” as far as how many more hotel rooms the market could handle in coming years. Financing should follow, he said, depending upon developer track records and the competitive nature of particular marketplaces where hotels could be built.