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September 26, 2003Great Wolf Lodge draws in off-season businessManager not worried about other new parksByRecord-Eagle staff writer TRAVERSE CITY - The Great Wolf Lodge and its 38,000-square-foot indoor water park has pulled in thousands of guests since opening in March, tapping what managers say is a huge new market. The hotel hosted 42,000 guests from March 17 through August, general manager Gary Cole said. Occupancy ran from the high 70 percent to the high 90 percent range. Marketing director Rex O'Connor said much of that was trade not seen here in the past - people who don't want to spend much time outdoors but do like staying in a hotel with a big water park that looks like a giant campground lodge. And it doesn't matter to them that it's off-season. The 281-room lodge is owned by Great Lakes Companies of Madison, Wis. It got into the water-park hotel business in 1997 when it bought the Black Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells. Since then, Great Wolf Lodges have opened in Sandusky, Ohio, and Kansas City, Kan., and others are planned. Great Wolf's rates run from $249 to $389 a night in peak seasons and $100 to $150 when demand is down. Slow times at the Wisconsin Dells property are May and September and local managers expect that may be true here. There are plans for two other indoor water parks in the northwest region. One is a 40,000-square-footer in Mackinaw City the Lieghio hotel family plans to open in 2005. A 58,000-square-foot park at Boyne Mountain Resort in Boyne Falls could be ready next year. An outdoor water park, called Thunder Falls, is already under way in Mackinaw City on 20 acres at the first exit off I-75 into the city. Great Wolf managers say bring on the competition. "Unlike Wisconsin Dells, where there's a concentration of 18 properties with water parks, this would be spread out a bit and would only help to increase awareness of water park resorts in Michigan," Cole said. "I would be more concerned if they were going across the road next to the Ford dealership." Will Traverse City become like Wisconsin Dells? Not likely, local tourist officials said. The Dells draw visitors from heftier markets like Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minn. But a few more in the region could bring off-season economic benefits, said Deborah Knudsen, president of the Traverse City Convention and Visitors Bureau. "The major impact of Great Wolf Lodge is it is proof you can expand the off-season economy," she said. "But you need to spend money to create that attraction. The off-season tourist business in the Dells rose 372 percent in the past 10 years, and employment rose from an annual average of 5,672 to 19,289 in that same period, said Bonnie Sierlecki, spokeswoman for the convention and visitors bureau there.
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