In the last decade or so, new hotels have sprung up all over Wichita Falls, in areas that once did not have a single one, and in about two weeks construction of a new one will be underway at Kell East and McNiel, behind the Whataburger.

The director of Convention and Visitors Bureau says currently Wichita Falls has almost 2000 total hotel rooms.

While some wonder how the city can support more hotels, including one proposed at the MPEC, city and tourism officials believe that not only will this cause healthy competition but also more choices.



City director of Community Development, Dana Schoening said the company, Paras Construction, proposed 96 rooms for this latest addition in this part of town and if new hotels keep coming, they said there must be a high enough demand.

In 2017, the city of Wichita Falls saw an increase in average hotel occupancy to 65.8 percent, this is a little more than the state average of 64.8 percent, what this also means is that rooms are going faster and the need for more accommodation at busier times of the year is also growing.

“Last year in 2017 and this is a study that is produced that by the governor and their economic development office, they put the study out and we actually had a little over 2-and-a-half million visitors here in the city of Wichita Falls MSA,” Director of Wichita Falls Convention and Visitors Bureau Lindsay Barker said.

In about 14 months, visitors should have another option. It will be a Residence Inn by Marriott located off Kell Blvd and McNiel and the local economy will get another shot in the arm.

“We want to be apart of the community and we want to create a lot of jobs,” Mitesh Patel of Paras Construction said. “We’ll try to hire local contractors, and when we get there we will hire all the people from local community.”

“I think that like with this new hotel coming in really that’s a sign as well that things are moving in the right direction,” Schoening said.

This project was first proposed three years ago and Mitesh Patel said after buying the project from another company and conducting a market study, he saw a definite need for the hotel.

According to Patel, this will be a high end extended stay hotel and if this project does well once it opens, Patel tells us they could be looking at other opportunities for development here.