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Fire Chief Barry Johnstone explains part of the extrication techniques while a fellow fireman chopped his way into a car to retrieve a dummy. The event took place on Saturday afternoon at an open house during Fire Prevention Week the Provost fire hall. ©Provost News Photo.
Photos in October 19 edition of The Provost News.
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All 226 Hotel, Motel Rooms Taken by 360 People
Daily tab for lodging and food: $36,000
Hotel and motel rooms in Provost are filling up quickly and a survey of the Greenhead Motel and Restaurant, Horizon Motel and Restaurant, Provost Motor Inn, Super 8 and the Deerhead Inn showed that all were sold out on Thursday night, October 13.
Other recent nights have also seen motel staff turning away people looking for a stay in town.
The current heavy usage is driven mainly by the busy oilpatch activity and a mix of other users.
All the hotel and motel space in town account for 226 rooms for rent nightly.
Pak Wong for the Greenhead Motel and Restaurant, who is a past president of the Alberta Motel Association says that the average room rate in town is between $60 and $65 and that each person spends over $100 per night for a room, food and beverage. In rooms being rented there are an average of 60 percent of them being used as double occupancy—so approximately 362 people are using rooms on week nights.
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The visitors pump a minimum of $36,000 worth of lodging, food and beverages alone into the local economy daily.
This however does not include money also being spent by those people purchasing gasoline at service stations, clothing, hunters getting more ammunition and other supplies, drug store purchases, confectionary, entertainment and other items.
Wong says that at this time of year all facets of the oilfield industry are represented in their rooms with drilling and surveying crews “going flat out right now”. Businessmen and other general travellers add to the mix while on weekends family visiting is taking place. For the month of October, Wong says his motel is running “close to 90 percent full” and that he is definitely happy with that.
Meanwhile at the Horizon Motel and Restaurant, spokesman Karen Smith says they have been full for a couple of weeks Monday to Thursday “but it’s now filling up on weekends” because of the oilfield projects. She believes it will be busy up until Christmas. Their rooms are being filled by road construction, seismic crews, oil and gas workers and other travellers. Hunters she says have mainly come and gone. Smith says room guests are telling them other nearby towns are full of visitors as well and adds that they are usually busy every fall and have been 90 to 95 percent full recently. “We’ve been turning away 50 to 100 people daily.” Owner of the Horizon Motel and Restaurant is David Kim of Calgary who took over in June.
Bob Yeo of the downtown Provost Motor Inn says “it’s good news” with so many oilfield workers staying at his hotel. He says that he is also optimistic that this winter his room sales will be brisk.
Rest of story photos in October 19 edition of The Provost News.
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