I would like to express "my opinion" on Jim Follis' comments in the Sequim Gazette, Nov. 25. I found his remarks regarding the new Holiday Inn Express and its appearance both irresponsible and misleading.

The construction of the hotel has been done with the cooperation of the city. The color scheme and rooftop garden were designed to provide passersby with eye appeal rather than a grey box. It would have been easier and much cheaper for Mr. Bret Wirta, the hotel's owner, to have built the aforementioned grey box, but he wants to enhance the city. The large water feature in front of the property, rather than the usual car parking area is another example of Mr. Wirta's vision.



Welcomes visitors

Will Mr. Follis still regard the hotel as ugly when it brings in new business to Sequim? The hotel was designed to bring conferences and tours to the city that would normally be housed in neighboring cities or remain in Seattle.

The economic impact for Sequim when these conferences arrive will help our downtown, our attractions and our restaurants. A Seattle-based sales team has already sourced such business, which will help during the off-season periods. In addition to this, many thousands of dollars are spent each year with targeted marketing to bring new visitors to Sequim.

Wirta Hospitality Worldwide, the corporation that owns this hotel and the Quality Inn & Suites on River Road, has a proven reputation. The Quality Inn will be one of the few hotels of that brand to qualify for a second platinum award and is again set to be ranked in the top 10 out of 793 Quality brand hotels. The new Holiday Inn Express will be run with the same values.



Empty is ugly

Despite many mid-range hotels losing up to 30 percent of business in 2009, the Quality Inn has remained close to last year's totals.

As Mr. Follis has offered his opinion of what is ugly, may I offer one of my own: The many empty business buildings, whose numbers continue to rise through the current economic decline, make ugly viewing.

Without a new hotel like Holiday Inn Express that has the capacity to bring in new customers, new residents and prospective new investors for Sequim businesses, the outlook for our city looks uglier.

Maybe if Mr. Follis visited a local optician and looked through new spectacles, other than his currently rose-tinted ones, he would see what

Sequim can become rather than what he wants it to be.



Damian Humphreys of Sequim is sales and marketing manager for Wirta Hospitality Worldwide.