Honest hotel and motel owners in Maggie Valley are fed up with a sneaky trick allegedly used by a small handful of their competitors.

Friday afternoon of a busy summer weekend —Memorial Day or July 4 are best — flip on the “no vacancy” sign, wait until the rest of the rooms in the Valley fill up, then flip the “no vacancy” sign off again, and charge double or triple the regular rates.

A desperate traveler will pay anything. Donna McElroy, owner of Meadowlark, remembers one busy weekend when a man walked into her front office and bid $500 on her last room. She’d just promised the room to another couple who were standing at the counter waiting to pay when the bidder walked in. Despite his fat wallet, McElroy gave it to the first couple.

To McElroy, who has deep roots in Maggie Valley, the long-term reputation of the town as a tourism destination was a better investment than turning a quick buck on a busy weekend. But some owners would rather get in, make money quick, and get out.

In an effort to standardize quality and service and ensure fair prices, a small group of lodging owners have formed the Haywood County Hotel and Motel Association.

“We want good quality standards so nobody is going back home to where they live and badmouthing Maggie Valley, because that’s one of the worst thing that can happen,” said Sonja Michaels, a board member of the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority. Wade Reece, the owner of the Quality Inn and a Maggie Valley political figure, is spearheading the group, which formed officially in January.

“You have to build repeat business. You can’t live off first-time visitors,” said Reece.

In addition to promoting professionalism in the industry, the group will also lobby to protect tourism interests and elevate the perception of tourism, which is often viewed as a lesser industry by county leaders. The county commissioners last fall would not spend $15,000 on a marketing study to help sell Ghost Town, an amusement park that once brought in 300,000 visitors a years. Meanwhile, the county commissioners have spent hundreds of thousands on industrial sites.

“Tourism is a major part of Haywood County. The county needs to take a step back and look at where they’re going,” Reece said. “It’s time that these folks who have their livelihood invested in this can belong to an organization they can lean on.”

Group benefits

Several lodging owners are excited about bulk purchasing. They all need toilet paper, soaps, cleaning supplies, laundry detergent and propane. One mission of the association is to get lower prices on such items by pooling their buying power.

Members will use the association logo on their own advertising materials and will display a decal on their signs and in their office window. The stamp of approval will provide travelers with reassurance, said Joe Moody, the manager of Peppertree Resort.

A committee of members is developing the quality standards. New members will be inspected before they can join. Protocol for conducting the inspections is being developed, with some in the group leaning toward putting an outside party in charge.

“It would be a conflict of interest for one of us to do it,” said Tammy Meissner, owner of Smoky Falls, which oversees 40 house and cabin vacation rentals. She said the membership process should be as objective as possible.

“You want to keep the politics out of it,” added her husband, Michael Meissner.

Lodging allies

In Maggie, politics and tourism have long been intertwined, however. The town was incorporated for the purpose of advancing tourism. Many of its political leaders through the years have been the owners of tourism-based businesses. Political allegiances can dictate whether one business owner recommends another establishment to a visitor.

Some say the newly formed hotel and motel association has political undertones. It has been formed despite the existence of another similar organization, the Maggie Valley Area Lodging Association, which formed in the mid-1990s. The group has 33 accommodation members, mostly hotels and motels, as well as some B&Bs, resorts and a campground.

The association formed during a move to change the handling of room tax dollars, a 3 percent tax on overnight accommodations administered by the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority. They money used to be spent to promote tourism countywide. But the lodging association wanted a portion of those funds to be disseminated back to the locale where they were originally collected.

“Maggie Valley’s lodging people felt like they were losing their identity with everything being advertised as Haywood County,” said Linda Taylor, a Maggie Valley alderwoman and owner of Valley Inn. The association lent a collective voice to their concerns, Taylor said.

“We formed for the express purpose of being politically active,” Taylor said. Taylor is still an active leader in the association today, along with Jo Pinter, the town mayor and owner of Castlewood Inn.

But Taylor and Pinter are in opposite political camps from Reece. Reece has campaigned hard against them in past races and been a vocal opponent of their leadership on the town board.

Whether Reece’s new group was formed in response to Taylor and Pinter’s group is a matter of debate. But Michael Meissner of Smoky Falls pointed out that it is not uncommon in this county to have groups and associations with overlapping missions.

“There’s been such controversy lately. It’s nice somebody is taking a proactive step,” said Meissner, who also works for Reece’s magazine Smoky Mountain Living. “We’re going to work together to promote the Valley.”