What’s happening in Detroit this summer and the rise in downtown tourism

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:00]Welcome back everybody. A live look at the city of Detroit right now. The city has been on a run for a few years and it's only picking up speed. This week Dan Gilbert's Bedrock locked in a $150 million state bond to finish four major downtown project. The Hudson's Tower, the Book Tower, expanding Campus Martius and the new Cadillac Square development.

[00:00:20]Hudson's alone is expected to be done next year and that is just the construction side of it. On the culture side, Detroit just got into the Michelin Guide. Movement is coming. So is the Jazz Festival, the Grand Prix, the African World Festival in July and then the big one, the 2027 NCAA Men's Final Four tournament. That's less than 11 months away. Maybe we'll have Michigan in again. That's a repeat championship.

[00:00:46]Who knows?

[00:00:47]>> [snorts] >> Plus three new downtown hotels opening in the same year and the numbers back it up. According to the Detroit Downtown Detroit Partnership, last year nearly 31 million people visited downtown Detroit and more than eight half million people had never been here before. Those numbers tell the new story. Claude Molinari is the president and CEO of Visit Detroit. Claude, thank you so much for coming in. We were just talking in the commercial break that we hate to admit it, although I guess that we have to, that perception is still a problem of the city of Detroit.

[00:01:17]You've been fighting that the entire time you've been in here, but I think it's safe to say that that perception finally changing enough that money is coming in, enough money and enough investment to change things. What do you think?

[00:01:28]>> Oh, 100% and and the perception has definitely turned the corner. We're seeing that again. Used to be it'd be like, "Oh, I'm from Detroit." People like, "Oh, so sorry." Now it's, "Ooh, I'm hearing stuff about your city and everything that's going on in Southeast Michigan." We're really excited and again, I'm I'm selling a great product, which is really fun to do. It's a great time to be in your job right now. No doubt. Uh Crain's Business had the article this morning about another brand new hotel. And again, you said in the commercial break, it's one thing to have a new hotel going up connected to the convention center. It's another statement to have another hotel starting construction before the first one's even done. That's right. This is definitely a statement that Detroit is a serious player in the meetings and convention business and the demand is there. We just recently lost an event that wanted to come here, but we just couldn't meet their hotel criteria. This additional hotel, now having 1,200 rooms connected to the convention center, that's going to be a huge statement to the market that says, "You got to check out Detroit for future conferences and events because they're definitely in the game."

[00:02:28]So, how did we get to this point? I mean, how did how did we push the needle far enough for large hotels, large investors to say, "It's worth investing the money?" Well, I I I think as as the success of the destination has really picked up and even now when in our constricted position, a hotel occupancy is up 3% year over year. Average daily rate is up by 1%. So, those things say there's room to grow here and our and and again, we've got three hotels coming online in '27. There's going to be that's a major benefit to the destination. And again, you've got to be able to to meet the needs of the show when it wants to come here because if they need 6,000 hotel rooms, we can only give them 4,000. They don't give us 4,000, they go somewhere else. So, for those who don't understand, we've had the conversation before, but just to kind of recap. You have had multiple, whether it's shows, tournaments, big events say they'd like to come here, but they can't do it. I mean, how how many? Uh we've lost over 600,000 hotel room nights for events that would have come here if we could have had the hotel capacity to deal with them. And again, we major events that are like, "Hey, when you get to this number, call us and we'll do it." And you know, even like the NBA has said with their All-Star game, like, "This is a criteria you need to hit. If you don't have it, you can't do it." All right. So, with the hotels that are coming online soon in 2027, how close to that, I'll say final goal are we?

[00:03:54]I would say we're about halfway there.

[00:03:56]Still in the halfway there. And look, here's the thing. Like, we're building 600 hotel rooms. When we're done with the hotel, the new JW Marriott, we'll be 200 rooms further behind Indianapolis cuz they're building an 800 room while we're building a 600 room. So, it's an arms race, but the prop the revenue is there, the ROI is there and developers are seeing this and it's a call to action and we're seeing a lot of interest.

[00:04:20]>> Got you. Okay. So, the that narrative then, that perception, is that still a battle that you're having or do you think that has gone away enough? Um I would say it's still a challenge.

[00:04:32]Every once in a while, like even when we have our customer advisory board in town and there's three potential customers who'd never been here before and they're like, "I'm I I'm shocked. I'm so surprised how awesome this city is." And it's almost insulting. I want to be like, "What did you expect?" But the good news is they gave it a try and we always say, "If we can get them here, we'll get them here."

[00:04:53]>> So, when you get them here, what do you do? Do you walk them through Campus Martius? Like, what what what's the pitch? What does it look like?

[00:04:58]>> Take them all throughout the city.

[00:04:59]Sometimes you take them on a people mover tour of the city. You know, show the destinations, the restaurants, the hotels, the attractions, the >> mover itself is a huge draw, right? Just to be able to move people around.

[00:05:09]Absolutely. And and again, once they see the riverfront and they see that pure Michigan blue water. Maybe not on a day like today. It doesn't look that great right now. But it's it's [laughter] it's pure blue, you know, and that makes a difference. We had two cruise ships parked today in Detroit or docked in Detroit.

[00:05:23]>> [laughter] >> Either way. So, you've got an event this morning opening in an hour and 45 minutes. You're kind of laying a lot of this out for people to see where you're at, right? Correct. So, today is our our partnership marketing meeting and it's our annual meeting to really highlight all of the things that Visit Detroit has done and is going to be doing. You know, in in two years we're going to be hosting the largest travel trade show in the world. 10,000 people from the travel trade industry and the media descending upon Detroit. We want to be ready for that event. We have to build up to get there with all of our entertainment and hospitality infrastructure. So again, that's some of the things that we're working on. It sounds like just having them in town is an opportunity for them to take our message and put it out there. 100%. Interesting. Okay.

[00:06:07]In in terms of the hotels, so you've got JW being built right now. The brand new one just announced, that probably doesn't have a name yet, right?

[00:06:15]>> yet.

[00:06:15]>> Okay. We're we're negotiating with two two different groups that we think are going to be able to be the flag for that.

[00:06:21]>> Got you. Okay. We're almost out of time here and then the the one next to LCA is still going up. What what's the timeline there?

[00:06:27]That's a good question for our FRIENDS AT LCA.

[00:06:30]>> [laughter] >> WOW. ALL RIGHT. WE'LL LEAVE IT AT that then. Claude, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Appreciate your time today.