Haunted hotels lure ghost seekers
Posted on Thursday, October 25, 2007
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Business/205569/
EUREKA SPRINGS — “Paranormal Pair” package sales at haunted hotels are setting records in Eureka Springs, even though haunted house visits didn’t top the 2007 list of popular Halloween activities for some Americans.
While handing out candy and decorating a yard or home ranked higher than overnight tours of Victorian haunts, the Ozark resort town continues to cash in during the spooky season.
The 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa’s 2005 appearance on Ghost Hunters, a one-hour weekly docu-soap shown on the Sci-Fi channel, is partly credited with a continued increase in hotel reservations. In the Oct. 19 episode, a full-bodied apparition was caught on videotape in the basement morgue, which is now a storage area.
Now hotel promoters are offering the chance to “sleep” in those rooms as part of a special two-night package, which has been marketed as a package for four and priced about $ 471 per person, said Bill Ott, a hotel spokesman.
Ott didn’t make any morgue reservations this season.
“I get calls wanting more information about the morgue, like ‘Are we sleeping where the Sci-Fi Ghost Hunters were ?’ and ‘Do we have to bring our own bed ?’” he said. “But when I explain to them what they get and how much it’ll cost, they say, ‘ We’ll get back to you. ’”
The two morgue rooms now serve as the hotel’s maintenance and storage area. Dozens of gallons of paint, along with stacked air conditioner filters and different-size light bulbs sit in plain sight on shelves where guests would sleep. Maintenance guy Terry Konsdorf stood sanding a couple of boards in one of them recently.
Does he believe the hotel is haunted after working at the Crescent for nearly a year ?
“I do hear stuff like a door opening and closing,” he said.
Even if the morgue fails to land a curious foursome, Ott said, the package has been a great way to sell the less expensive stays.
The more affordable “Paranormal Pair” and “Spirits of the Crescent” packages entice fright-seeking families and young couples to stay over. The packages include breakfast, a ghost tour and, with the more popular “Paranormal Pair,” a night at the 1905 Basin Park Hotel.
Hotel operators declined to give comparative reservation figures for the story; however, the Ghost Hunters publicity continues to generate interest. Ott added that the fall foliage and cooler weather are an added draw to the remote Carroll County town.
According to the National Retail Federation’s 2007 Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, 18. 7 percent of adults celebrating Halloween planned to visit a haunted house. That statistic placed the activity seventh in a ranking of seven.
Most of the money coming from the estimated $ 5. 07 billion holiday will be spent on costumes and candy.
Americans will plunk down an average $ 38. 50 for a costume this year and an average $ 20. 94 for candy, according to the Retail Federation. The federation’s survey gauges consumer behavior and shopping trends. The survey polled 8, 877 people between Sept. 4 and Sept. 11.
Tina Williams, owner of three Halloween Express stores in Northwest Arkansas, confirmed the average price per costume, and said that while prices are up on a few items this year, spending is slightly down. Halloween Express started in 1990 and has more than 140 company-owned and franchised stores in the United States, according to the company’s Web site.
“We’re hoping to do as well as last year,” she said, “but we’re down in comparison.”
Economic woes are affecting all retailers, said Williams, 46.
But people continue buying costumes and such accessories as fake blood, spiders, pumpkincarving kits and best Halloween costume awards.
Popular children’s costumes sold at Halloween Express included the Bratz Girls, Hannah Montana, Transformers and pirates. For adults, a Paris Hilton prison costume is also in demand, along with Spartan characters from the movie 300, Williams said.
Walking out of a Halloween Express store in Rogers, Sarah Rodgers, 19, said she spent $ 40 on a queen of hearts costume.
“It was really cheap compared with the $ 90 costume,” the cosmetology student said.
In the past, Rodgers said, she spent less on her Halloween outfits, but this year she and her friends were going all out on account of her best friend’s 20 th birthday celebration that same week. Rodgers and her two friends said they plan to visit Eureka Springs, armed with some kind of “ghost meter” that a friend of a friend will lend them. They’ll be staying at the Crescent Hotel. “ I’m not sure I believe them [that the hotel is haunted ], but we’ll find out on the 29 th, ’’ Rodgers said.
To contact this reporter: lwhalen@arkansasonline. com