The opening of a new hotel in Bossier City is helping our area reach a very important milestone.

The ribbon was cut on the brand new, dual branded Homewood Suites and Hilton Garden Inn Hotel in Bossier City this afternoon.

The new facility will offer 300 rooms and nearly 9,000 square feet of office space for those who travel through our area.

The addition of the hotel now brings the grand total of hotels in the Shreveport Bossier metropolitan area to 75.  With that, we also now have over 10,000 rooms available for people to stay in.

Tom Lubbe, the President of the Shreveport Bossier Hotel Association says hitting the 10,000 room mark is a very important milestone.

"It's a great situation because we get over that 10,000 room mark, which puts us into a different light when it comes to the different meeting planners, we have a lot more options," said Lubbe.

The options also include being able to host bigger events, such as conventions, which can bring thousands of people to our area at any given time.

"Think about someone who is trying to plan a convention with 2,500 attendees, they need to be able to put as many of those people as possible in nearby locations," said Chris Jay with the Shreveport Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau.

Even with all the hotels, our daily capacity only reaches about 67 percent, which spawns the question if we've overbuilt this area.

Lubbe says many of the hotel operators are hoping building slows down, but that the influx of hotels can house industries, like oil and gas, when they begin to return to the area.

"So much was built for the oil and gas and when it does come back which it will, the hotels will be ready for them," said Lubbe.

The next big addition to the Shreveport Bossier area will be the Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville Casino and Hotel.

The $195 million structure will give the area an additional 400 hotel rooms to stay in.  That will put the areas total about 10,500.

Margaritaville is slated to open in June.