Too Many Hotels? | Video

Alex Hagan | 9/17/2012

Like most rapidly growing cities in western North Dakota, Dickinson is short of many needs, such as housing, employees and infrastructure. The city has also had a lack of hotel rooms, leading to the construction of several hotels. But that may have created a problem. Dickinson is located in an area that requires more hotels than other cities in the western part of the state. The need for more available rooms has grown over the past year. Now city leaders are worried about the over-building of hotels, just like permanent housing.

Hotel employees are constantly busy every day, taking phone calls and making reservations. And with newcomers coming to town looking for temporary housing, that`s not a surprise.

"The phones constantly ring, we have people calling for everything from just wanting a one night, they`re traveling through. To companies wanting to looking to book several rooms for extended periods of time," said Diana Williams with Best Western Hotel.

Hotels continue to be built within the city. There are 16 hotels now and more are on the way.

"Rooms are definitely available becoming readily available with the increase of new properties in Dickinson," said Julie Obrigewitsch with the Dickinson Convention and Visitors Bureau.

However, city leaders say the number of hotel rooms might exceed the amount needed.

"We may be in that 35 to 50 thousand range and it appears that 23 hotels would exceed the general or average number of hotels in communities of that size," said City Administrator Shawn Kessel.

Potential residents coming to the city are looking for temporary housing and are looking for hotels as an answer.

"What we think is happening is that the hotels are actually functioning more as a crew camp, as least, in their business plan, have a large majority of the business plan includes acting as a crew camp," Kessel said.

And city leaders are looking at similar sized cities to compare growth.

"You try to look at a like community something in that 40 to 45,000 range to see how many hotels are typical in a community of that size," Kessel said.

For now, hotel owners continue to enjoy their busy work schedule.

"We like being busy, it makes the day go by a lot faster," Williams said.

But that busy work schedule could get lighter with five more hotels on the way.

Despite more available hotel rooms, Dickinson CVB officials say pre-planning is still recommended. They say hotels are more busy during the week compared to the weekend.

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