Two factors should have made 3Q2021 and 1Q2022 difficult for Steve Dugan, general manager of New Hope’s Golden Plough Inn: the decline in seasonable weather and the ongoing pandemic’s diminishment of guests willing to spend a night in a hotel. Neither turned out to be any issue at all, reports Laura Smythe in the Philadelphia Business Journal.

In fact, Dugan is characterizing the local travel cycle’s traditional “off season” as one of the hotel’s most active quarters in recent memory.

Business has been “exceptionally better,” Dugan said, referring to past performance for Jan., Feb., and Mar. last year and the one before.

The number of guests n Mar. was up 16 percent from the same period in 2021, marking the fifth consecutive Mar. of better business for the hotel. In Dec. 2021, business was up a whopping 83 percent over the final month of 2020.

Demographics have changed, as well.

Corporate occupants, once the inn’s bread and butter, have been replaced by leisure travelers that include young families. Dugan suspects their eagerness to stay with him is related to the hotel’s proximity to Peddler’s Village.

More on the recent occupancy surge at the Golden Plough Inn is at the Philadelphia Business Journal.