Foreign travel key to hotel recovery

South Florida’s tourism industry will depend on foreign visitors for a recovery, industry leaders said at a recent conference in Miami. Another critical aspect of recovery, Mark Lomanno, president of Smith Travel Research, said is the autumn travel season performance. Growth has already come from South America and Eastern Europe, the latter whose visitation to the U.S. grew 1.2 percent from the prior year, according to the International Trade Administration. Slowing rates of decline indicated a bottoming process was underway. In Miami, July 2009 hotel room occupancy rates fell 8.7 percent to 64.2 percent from July 2008. Additionally, the average daily room rate dropped 9 percent and revenue per available room, or revpar, fell 16.9 percent.