Village Lake Delton Ordinance on Property Incentives Favors Hotel Franchises

The Village of Lake Delton Finance Committee serves Wisconsin Dells area hotel owners who participate in the process created through the local ordinance on property improvement incentives - that provides up to 10k per room to become a location for a national hotel franchise chain.

Hotel owners converting an existing location compare financial analysis results that demonstrate an elevation in revenue post conversion.  Post conversion the franchise hotel owner can then compare actual annual revenue to the projected calculation created through financial analysis.

Village of Lake Delton municipal administration staff can compare financial analysis projections of premier resort tax contributions to the actual premier resort tax calculations paid by the new franchise hotel location.

Sizable differences - deficits in the actual annual revenue and contributed premier resort tax - when compared to the financial analysis projections can be attributed to lack of adequate staffing.  When revenue and resort tax projections formulated through financial analysis are much higher than actual received revenue the low occupancy can be directly related to a lack of adequate staffing.

The Wisconsin Dells area must import their labor from outside of the Country through the J1VISA Immigration Programming.  Enrollment from outside of the Country to come work in the Wisconsin Dells area through the J1VISA Immigration Program has dropped measurably.  Hotels in the Wisconsin Dells area have been known to close off whole wings of a building - only taking the number of over night guests the staff can actually serve.

This means hotel occupancy is determined by the available staff which produces a much lower return on investment than the operator may have anticipated.  Simply the function of the hotels capacity to earn revenue is far below the actual potential due to the areas well documented lack of workers.