The lodging industry in Wrightsville Beach suffered a big hit in the month of August, when room occupancy plummeted 17.88 percent—or more than $1 million—from the same month last year.

"It’s not a great looking picture," said Kim Hufham, president/CEO of the Wilmington/Cape Fear Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau, who announced room occupancy tax collections at the beginning of a Wrightsville Beach Tourism Development Authority (TDA) meeting Tuesday evening, Oct. 13.

"When August is down it really hits us hard because August is the second largest month we have," she added, focusing her comments on the authority.

The announcement undermines the optimistic outlook created when room occupancy increased by a scant 0.22 percent in July, giving tourism authorities reason to believe the industry might crawl out of the woods.

But in August, room occupancy was down across the board, except in Kure Beach, which spiked a good 3.75 percent, Hufham said. New Hanover County as a whole was down 11.5 percent. Wrightsville Beach has consistently dropped the most due to the economic recession coupled with the increased room inventory on the Wilmington side of the Heide Trask drawbridge.

Over the course of this calendar year—January through August—Wrightsville Beach room occupancy has plunged 13.58 percent, Hufham said. New Hanover County as a whole has dropped 9.26 percent for the same period.

Rental properties on Wrightsville Beach suffered a 21 percent decline in August, Hufham said, whereas hotels and motels dropped by 14.55 percent.

To boost the local tourism industry, the CVB has installed several enhancements on the town’s Web site, visitwrightsville.com, which includes a Flickr option that allows people to submit their personal photos for online publication. Also, the CVB has commercial spots scheduled to run during 16 ACC college basketball games starting in November and running through March 2010, said Joel Kluger, president of Sunbelt Media and the chief negotiator for the TDA’s broadcasting initiatives. Thus far, commercials in general haven’t generated much response Kluger said. The authority tracks visitor response to the spot by way of a phone number and is charged for the number of calls generated. Kluger said the authority will probably not spend all of the money it had budgeted for these commercials because the number of inquiries has been low. Spots for Wrightsville Beach have been sent to 12 television stations across the state and stations in Cincinnati, Ohio and the Food Network.