The Ridge receives Hospitality Impact Award

Lake Geneva’s newly renovated Ridge Hotel took home Hospitality Impact Award from VISIT Lake Geneva, the city’s Chamber of Commerce, at its Sept. 29 annual dinner.

Competing with a record number of nominees this year, The Ridge Hotel topped the list of those that invoked a positive influence on tourism in the Lake Geneva area in 2016.

Paloma Resort Properties, which manages The Ridge Hotel, received accolades for creating a new lodging experience in Lake Geneva with the reinvention of Geneva Ridge Resort as The Ridge Hotel.

“Representing a multi-million-dollar transformation, The Ridge guest experience now benefits from the latest technology and a contemporary, upscale design that previously was not available in our market,” said VISIT Lake Geneva president and chief executive officer Darien Schaefer during his presentation of the Hospitality Impact Award. “Rebranding the property has expanded the guest demographics to include millennials and young professionals, which benefits the entire area and helps establish Lake Geneva as a business and vacation destination for yet another generation.”

    On behalf of The Ridge Hotel, General Manager Todd Baior accepted the Hospitality Impact Award from Schaefer and Dave Hills, general manager of Hawk’s View Golf Course, which hosted the 72nd annual dinner.

“We were quite honored to receive the 2016 Hospitality Impact Award, as we know we are not the only property to have made significant capital improvements this past year,” Baior said. “Together, the reinvestments in our hotels, restaurants and services not only provide more of a reason to visit Lake Geneva, but also help to secure jobs and revenue at the local and state levels.”

Visitors to Wisconsin generated $1.5 billion in state and local revenue last year, and more than 190,700 of the state’s jobs are supported by tourism, according to the 2015 Economic Impact of Tourism in Wisconsin. Last year

In Walworth County, where more than 6,870 jobs are supported by hospitality and tourism, business sales for tourism totaled $682 million, making Walworth the sixth highest county for tourism spending in Wisconsin, according to David Spiegelberg, regional tourism specialist at the Wisconsin Department of Tourism.

During his acceptance speech, Baior relayed a story of a recent Ridge Hotel guest who had been coming to Lake Geneva for decades.                  “One of the reasons this guest continues to return is to see all the new and exciting attractions and changes that have been made in the area since he was here last,” Baior said. “For us in the industry, it’s exciting to provide the impetus for the ever-growing Lake Geneva.”

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