Nashville's hotel rates will likely drop this year. Here's why.

Like so many Nashville visitors, entertainment attorney Eric Griffin rarely has an easy time booking reasonably-priced hotel rooms for his clients.

He pores over short-term rental listings, online-booking sites and promotions before settling on a fair rate.

"I'm trying to find my client a hotel room, and it's unbelievable. I literally just got back from London, and I'm looking at paying London-or-worse rates in Nashville. That's just insane," Griffin said. "Five years ago, you had a tough time spending $200 a night in Nashville. Now you have a tough time finding anything at all under that."

But relief is in sight.

Consumers like Griffin will finally see price breaks this year as thousands more rooms come online, experts say.

Investors are fast increasing supply to meet demand from an unprecedented tourism boom that saw the number of visitors jump from 8.5 million in 2008 to 14.5 million last year. That boost led the average hotel rate during CMA Fest to go from less than $200 to $362 during that period.

There are now 120 new hotels under construction or being planned across the 14-county region included in the greater Nashville market.

"I don't see a fire-sale on rates. But, you might see a fire-sale for limited-service hotel rooms," said Butch Spyridon, president of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. "Places like the Dream, Omni, 21c, Noelle and Hermitage will still be able to hold a higher rate. They will all drop proportionately, but the lower end will drop more. We're seeing early signs of it now."

More than two dozen large hotels with 100 or more rooms are currently under construction downtown, near the airport, and in outlying areas like Goodlettsville and Green Hills. At least 41 more are in various stages of planning throughout Davidson County.

Smaller properties are also increasingly being eyed to entice travelers.

A historic red-brick church with striking stained-glass windows in East Nashville will be remade into a boutique hotel this year, if Metro planning officials approve plans on May. 24.

Home to Russell Street Church for 96 years, the building is now occupied by Life Church International on a residential street in the Edgefield neighborhood.

Micah Lacher of Anchor Investments hopes to transform the interior into a 20-room hotel snagging nightly rates from $200 to $400, along with a few more expensive suites.

"We are bullish on East Nashville due to the desirability of the neighborhood and the limited supply of hotels," Lacher said. "Our hotel offers a really cool setting inside of a historic church and a vibe that does not currently exist in Nashville. We look forward to bringing this beautiful church back to life and restoring it to its former glory."

Competition heats up

Developers are working to open more than 2,500 new rooms at hotels in Metro area this year, on top 6,500 existing rooms.

Marriott is leading the charge, with 24 hotels in the works at various price points. Its crown jewel, JW Marriott, is a 33-story, 533-room luxury hotel next to Music City Center and Bridgestone Arena set to open this summer.

The new hotel is six stories taller and has 80 more rooms than the nearby Westin. JW Marriott hired the Westin's former general manager last year.

Hugh Templeman, Westin's new general manager, said he's refocused on "creating tremendous value" since being hired 9 months ago. The hotel's rooftop pool and lounge is marketed as a destination where visitors can create life-long memories.

"When I got here, we were number 35 on TripAdvisor.com and now we're 26" on the traveler-ranked list of best hotels in Nashville, Templeman said. "We're focused on making the guests happy. It's very important for us to make their experience relationship-driven and not just a transaction."

He said it's possible the Westin will lower its prices with the recent opening of the Bobby, Noelle and Fairlane hotels and the soon-to-open JW Marriott, Dream and Marriott-branded complex of 470 rooms in three different hotels: the AC Hotel, Residence Inn and SpringHIll Suites.

"People say: 'What's the right rate?'," he said. "The right rate is what the market will bear. It's about supply and demand. Maybe people staying in the periphery would prefer to stay downtown, but there just weren't rooms."

Employees wanted

Creating a warm welcome for weary travelers will be increasingly important, even as it becomes harder than ever to meet staffing needs.

The five-star Hermitage touts its on-call shoeshine and limousine services. A topping-laden biscuit bar is open to guests all day at the Omni — the largest hotel downtown.

"You're part of the family," Loews Vanderbilt Hotel states, in an online advertisement. "We know that hospitality comes from the heart. And we’re dedicated to give you just that."

But staffing is the biggest challenge for all of these hotels. There's a long-standing shortage of hospitality workers, especially for culinary and housekeeping jobs.

The Convention & Visitors Bureau and Downtown Partnership have organized outreach to attract new employees at job fairs and schools, and many hotels are getting creative about finding and keeping talent.

The five-year-old Omni — rated sixth on TripAdvisor's list of top Nashville hotels — has never been fully staffed, said General Manager Dan Piotrowski.

"What keeps me up at night is workforce development," Piotrowski said. "How will all these projects and our hotel be fully staffed? That weighs as much on us as the business perspective."

The hotel recruits workers in the Philippines through the J-1 exchange-visitor visa, but new rules are making it more difficult and the program caps out at a year. The Omni also offers career development opportunities to retain workers.

"Labor costs are going up to get and retain the best talent. Property taxes and insurance have gone up dramatically. Food costs and supplies continue to go up," he said. "You can only pass so much of those costs onto the consumer and remain competitive. Maintaining margins is definitely going to be a challenge for us."

At the Westin, Templeman hired a recruiter to specifically target job-seekers in their 20s and 30s.

"We have to be compelling in terms of dollars and cents, paid time off, a 401K program," Templeman said. "We have a staff restaurant that serves three meals a day. It's actually the busiest restaurant in the hotel. Staff are rewarded for bringing in new hires. We have some contracted labor."

Keeping demand high

Limited-service hotels like the Holiday Inn Express and Hampton Inn & Suites will probably be forced to lower rates by early next year, said Nashville Downtown Partnership CEO Tom Turner.

"We’ve had limited-service hotels charging full-service rates," Turner said. "When you have someone coming in for a sporting event or a graduation, and they're looking at someplace 20 miles from downtown in the mid-$200 range, it doesn't fit everyone's budget."

But the hotels and business associations that represent them are working hard to keep tourism demand high.

British Airways began nonstop service from Nashville International Airport to London this week for the first time since the 1990s, and Nashville is featured on the cover of the airline's in-flight magazine this month.

"That’s an audience we could never reach," Spyridon said. "They listened to us, did their homework, and captured the branding and marketing message we've all worked so hard on. That's invaluable."

Leisure, business and convention travelers are targeted in marketing promotions and at trade shows like World Travel Mart in London.

The 2.1 million-square-foot Music City Convention Center that opened in 2013 has helped draw groups like the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons and the Electronic Security Expo. The site booked 21 conventions last year and has 29 scheduled this year.

Added hotels will only boost that business, experts believe. But not every property will be a winner in this increasingly heated market.

"We do not expect the leisure and business-travel demand to ebb anytime soon. I think the forecast for the city shows continued growth," said Jan Freitag, senior vice president of Hendersonville-based hotel market data firm STR Inc. "That said, developers have their eyes firmly on Nashville and we expect the number of rooms to grow as well. New hotels mean more competition, which normally means pricing is not as strong and is good news for leisure travelers."

By the numbers