It's been three years since a new hotel opened in Collier County - but that's about to change. Several new hotels are in the works, which are expected to add 300-to-400 rooms over the next few years. But the reason isn't necessarily to make more rooms available for visitors during the busy winter tourist season.
"What we're heading for is bringing tourists here in the off-season, so our hotels will thrive year-round," said Collier County Commissioner Penny Taylor.
That's why a new hotel in the City Gate area - near Interstate 75's Exit 101 - is expected to open by June. It's right next door to two existing hotels, and close to a soon-to-be-built amateur sports complex. Taylor said the hotels will bring more jobs to Collier County, and more visitors during the hot summer season.
"We expect to be putting a lot of people in those hotels, that basically, in the off-season, are not as busy," Taylor said.
Another site being cleared on U.S. 41 near Bayshore Drive in East Naples will be an extended-stay hotel. And just this week, Taylor and other county commissioners approved the building of a 169-room hotel in North Naples - but it will be exclusively for guests of the medical device company Arthrex.
"Arthrex is one of the main tourist drivers in our county," Taylor said. "It's educating doctors, and they have a lot of them coming through, so it's very important for them to have that on their campus."
