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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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Fewer people stayed in Tacoma-area hotels and motels last March than did a year before – but guests paid more.
With 67.3 percent of rooms occupied in March, Pierce County nearly led the state in the decline of occupied rooms, down 13.6 percent. Only in Everett and Snohomish County, where the rate fell 14 percent, was the decline greater.
Among nine regions in the state, only SeaTac and Southcenter hotels saw an increase in occupancy, up 5.2 percent to 75.9 percent of rooms taken.
Statewide, 71.5 percent of rooms were occupied – down 0.8 percent from March 2007, according to a monthly report by Bellevue hospitality consultant Wolfgang Rood.
The average daily room rate in Pierce County, $85.66, was up 13.5 percent over the year before. Although all other regions of the state saw increases in rates, only Bellingham, up 10.3 percent, came close to matching the increase in Pierce County.
The average cost of a room statewide, according to Rood, was $125.50 in March, up 6.1 percent from $117.27 a year before. Downtown Seattle, the perennial state leader for rates, enjoyed a 3.2 percent increase to $164.56.
