Wisconsin Dells Convention Hosting Stage II - Inverse Relationship

The Village of Lake Delton has given the Kalahari Resort 10 million publicly collected dollars to build a convention center ( 212 thousand square feet) capable of serving large regional - national groups.  This is a public - private partnership to construct a space that when operational will attract a huge new population of shared customers in to the Wisconsin Dells area.  The new convention center being built on the Kalahari Resort property is expected to become operational in the 4th quarter of 2019.

To assure adequate over night lodging availability for those attending the new convention center - the Village of Lake Delton has been providing financial incentives for franchise hotel operators who locate in the Wisconsin Dells area.  This has drastically increased the supply of hotel rooms in Wisconsin Dells.  We now have a buyers market- meaning hotel room prices are falling because there is too much of a supply of hotel rooms in the Wisconsin Dells area.

Once operational the new convention center at the Kalahari Resort will need to function at the higher end of occupancy to create the over night stays capable of populating the large number of vacant hotel rooms in the Wisconsin Dells area.  An inverse relationship exists between:

- level of convention center occupancy

- hotel room vacancy calculation

This means an increase in the level of convention center occupancy results in a decrease in the hotel room vacancy calculation.  This means a high number of hotel room vacancies indicates a decrease in the level of convention center occupancy.  Once the new convention center becomes operational the hotel providers will look to the convention center when their rooms are not being rented.

It will be important for the community to encourage the new convention center to work toward functioning at the higher end of occupancy.   This is the way the community will earn a return on their huge investment of public resources.   The Wisconsin Dells area has entered stage II of the convention hosting industry.