Tuesday, February 19, 2013

WE'LL LEAVE THE LIGHT ON: NEW ORLEANS HOTELS GEAR UP FOR SUPER BOWL XLVII

Super Bowl XLVI was held in Indianapolis and pulled in people from all over the region and the country.  A lot of people.  Of the $384 million gross expenditures, an estimated 116,000 game attendees/visitors (anyone that either stayed overnight or traveled at least 50 miles one way) contributed 69% of that total, some $264 million. (Source: EAM by eMaint)     This includes game attendees, auxiliary event spectators, team personnel, corporate employees, media, out-of-town workers, and other non-residents.  Indianapolis may not be known as the city that knows how to party, but for four days (the average length of a visitor’s stay during the game), it got to temporarily don the mantel.

Who Put These Pilgrims Up for the Night?

While the neighbors may have complained about the noise – an estimated one million people checked out the Super Bowl Village – the Indianapolis hotel industry gladly swelled to accommodate the deluge, putting folks up for a total of 224,000 room nights from January 27th – February 5th, 2012, and averaging about 93% occupancy for the four days leading up to and including the game, with 99% occupancy at hotels located downtown.  With this kind of heat, the Giants and The Patriots weren’t the only ones with all eyes on them.

An additional 1,500 full-time hotel employees supported the event, supporting continuity of service, before, during, and after the game, and with room rates nearly three times their norm (the average rate was $290/night versus $100), you can be sure there was zero tolerance for broken water mains, faulty heating and cooling systems, or any of the myriad occupational hazards of providing a “home away from home” to out-of-towners. One of the was hotels were able to keep problems like this from happening was by utilizing maintenance software.

In a comprehensive study presented by Rockport Analytics in July, 2012, which provided the bulk of this blog’s data, industries across all sectors saw substantial gains from hosting Super Bowl XLVI.  And while technically the New York Giants won last year’s Super Bowl, the city of Indianapolis was also a winner.

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