Is this true? Did not know that. Have not read that anywhere else.
I don’t know about the hotel room availability question, but there is no doubt the town is booming.
Pretty damn close. This past September my wife and eldest daughter went to visit my wife’s sister and her entire family sans one son who exiled from Kalifornia to a small town not too far from Little Rock, Arkansas. Rock hard conservatives from the Bakersfield area.
While there they took a day trip to Branson and spent 3 nights and 4 days in Nashville. They had a time finding hotels with enough room to accommodate 8 adults in downtown Nashville. They ended up renting a whole house thru VRBO or that other outfit just outside Music City area.
While in Nashville they said it reminded them of Bourbon or Canal Street in New Orleans during Mardi Gras with all the tourists everywhere. Massive amounts of construction cranes dotted the skyline. The wife said that I would not recognize Broadway or the Music City area.
I grew up in Southern Indiana and went to school in New Orleans, I spent a lot of time visiting Nashville in my youth and young adult life. Glad to hear this. Now, it seems time to straighten out Memphis, but I digress.
I would say it’s not just Nashville. Two years ago I bugged out to rural West TN, and I see a lot of opportunity here (with less competition).
I don’t know about room availability but I quit going to a particular business event in Nashville because of the taxes and fees added to a hotel room price. They think people who stay in hotels are cash cows. Taxes and fees add close to 20% to the advertised room rate.
And then the hotel which I had used every year started charging $20 a night for the privilege of parking your car in the hotel lot where you are paying for the room.