Louisville tourism advocates are celebrating a win this month after the city posted the nation’s largest increase in hotel demand — 11.4% — during this year’s first quarter.

While the data from CBRE Hotels Americas Research focuses on a relatively limited year-over-year snapshot of January through March, convention and hotel industry experts say the fact that Louisville has added hotel rooms and still registered a jump in demand is notable.

The numbers didn’t surprise Louisville Tourism, the agency that oversees convention and tourism activities. An increase in overall bookings by leisure tourists and conventions early this year has followed the 2018 opening of the Omni Louisville Hotel and the Kentucky International Convention Center’s relaunch after a $207 million renovation and expansion.

“We’ve seen a big uptick … and we’ve seen it in our hotels and our attractions” across Jefferson County, said Karen Williams, president and chief executive of Louisville Tourism. “The trajectory we’ve been on is unbelievable.”

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CBRE tracks and analyzes historical and future performance in the lodging industry. Its quarterly reports measure growth indicators of the nation’s top 60 major markets, including traditionally hot hotel destinations such as New York City, Seattle, Denver and San Francisco.

In the first quarter of this year, Louisville’s demand growth rate was followed by Nashville, Tennessee, at slightly over 10%. Milwaukee and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, were third and fourth, respectively, both slightly under 9%.

The national average was 2.4%, which is a slight dip for the same period in 2018.

“This report confirms Louisville’s booming tourism sector is a robust economic driver in our city,” Mayor Greg Fischer said in an announcement. “Positive news like this reinforces the work we are doing to attract additional hotel developers, along with growing our airlift routes. Louisville is a rising star, and we are looking to keep this momentum going.”

Louisville has lagged behind competitors in the number of hotel rooms, a lack that hampered efforts to book a larger and more diverse conventions. It also didn’t have a reputation, Williams said, for an array of tourism attractions coming out of the Great Recession.

"We've just not been that city" until recent investments have altered the landscape.

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The addition of more than 2,400 hotel rooms in the last 18 months, including the upscale 600-room Omni and smaller properties, has come as interest in the Kentucky Bourbon Trail brought in more visitors, she said.

CBRE defines demand as the rent for a room for a single night. While Louisville's 11.4% increase for the quarter topped the nation, part of what played into the large increase was a "lousy" early 2018, said Mark Eble, CBRE's hotels advisory practice leader for the Midwest.

The Omni's arrival in a market the size of Louisville gave a big boost to the overall capacity and is helping tourism advocates sell convention business to a broader swath of groups, Eble said.

Consequently, CBRE is predicting that Louisville hotel occupancy of 62% will remain steady through 2020 and drop just a point to 61% in the following two years. That's pretty strong considering that new space is still being added, he said.

In Southern Indiana, demand is also increasing as more rooms have been added. A recent report showed 630 additional rooms are under construction or on the drawing board, said Jim Epperson, executive director of SoIN Tourism, which includes Clark and Floyd counties.

Like Louisville, "we're seeing increase in demand and revenues," he said.

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To get a better sense of who are the estimated 16 million visitors coming to Louisville and Southern Indiana, the tourism groups have discussed jointly funding a visitor profile study (cost: $80,000 to $100,000) to give more detail on where people came from, what they did while in town and how they rated the stay.

Another joint effort between Louisville and SoIN involves a strategic plan (cost: $100,000 to $300,000) to guide development of new attractions and offerings for the next decade. A request for proposals will be put out this month, Williams said.

With all of the changes in recent years, it's time to chart a path forward, she and Epperson said.

"For us to continue to grow," Williams added, "we need this road map."

Grace Schneider: 502-582-4082; gschneider@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @gesinfk. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/graces.