Tourism impact can last all year

By Tom Stieghorst
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
January 28, 2007

A mild January in the Northeast has South Florida hotel owners a little
nervous. But this year they have an ace in the hole: Super Bowl XLI.
While economists debate the economic impact of the week leading up to
the event, some say the big game will be a big win for area hotels, not
only in February but also throughout 2007.

The theory is that the 125,000 visitors coming to South Florida for the
event and the 141 million U.S. television viewers will see something
they like and arrange to come back later this year with friends, family
or business colleagues.

"The immediate effect lasts a year," said Broward County visitors bureau
President Nicki Grossman.

That's what Grossman and others say happened the last time the Super
Bowl came to South Florida in 1999.

That year's matchup pitted Atlanta against Denver, neither a notably
strong market for winter visitors to South Florida. Yet collections from
the 5 percent tax on each hotel stay in Broward County that year rose
7.8 percent from 1998.

In the years just before and after the game, bed tax collections rose
only 2.7 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively.

Although the impact of the game at Dolphin Stadium is more limited in
Palm Beach County, bed tax collections there rose 7.3 percent in 1999
and kept rising by 10.3 percent in 2000.

"The exposure of people being down here is a benefit for everybody,"
said Tom Mulroy, general manager of the Renaissance Boca Raton hotel.
However, so much focus is placed on measuring the dollar value of the
week leading up to the game that little attention is paid to the longer
effects of the Super Bowl, said Kathleen Davis, a sports economist who
has studied the economic impact for two Super Bowls and is working on a
third. "I'd love to see them document that," she said.

The timing of the Super Bowl generally helps warm-weather host cities by
popping onto TV screens during the peak season for tourism. February and March are the two strongest months of the year for Broward
and Palm Beach county hotels.

Broward occupancy reached 90.3 percent last February and 89.7 percent in
March, while Palm Beach County occupancy hit 86.3 percent in February
2006 and 87.1 percent a month later.

A study by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers released last week
analyzed some of the postgame economics at the six most recent Super
Bowls.

"We evaluated hotel occupancy and rates in the five weeks surrounding
the game," said Robert Canton, a sport and tourism expert at the firm,
"and found that the two-week period following the Super Bowl performed
equally well or better than the two-week period prior to the week of the
game."

Perhaps the game's most intangible benefit, some hotel managers say, is
its function as an open house for the corporate elite.
New construction is changing South Florida's hotel landscape, giving
out-of-town Super Bowl guests a taste of what the region has to offer.
"It's a great chance to showcase our hotel and our area," said David
Berger, general manager of a 151-room Hampton Inn in Hallandale Beach
that opened in 2003. "If 25 percent [of Super Bowl guests] choose to
come back, then that's a great benefit."
Brian DeCort, general manager of the Marriott Hollywood Beach, said that
by bringing corporate guests to Hollywood to stay, the game helps
familiarize them with a place they tend not to know as well as Fort
Lauderdale or Miami.

The Marriott is one of about 20 Broward hotels providing rooms to the
NFL for sponsor groups and other special guests.
Hotel managers said they lavish attention on their restaurants during
Super Bowl because a memorable meal can be a catalyst for a return
visit.

Other cities that hosted Super Bowl in 2005 and 2006 appear to have
increased tourism, although demand for hotels in general has risen in
that time frame.

Bed tax collections in Jacksonville, the host in 2005, rose 23 percent
that year, and another 8 percent in 2006. Bed tax collections rose 7.5 percent last year in Detroit, site of Super
Bowl XL.

"It's helped raise our profile by showing what's new and improved here,"
said Carolyn Artman, a spokeswoman for the city's convention and
visitors bureau.

Broward's newest hotel, the 374-room Hilton Fort Lauderdale, won't be
fully finished for the game but has raced to open some of its rooms. The
top five floors of the 25-story tower are still a construction site, but
the hotel hopes to get $800 a night for rooms that are done.
To get them familiar with a new address, the Hilton hosted a breakfast
earlier this month for 1,500 taxi drivers.

Grossman, who hopes to drive home Fort Lauderdale's makeover to a more
upscale destination with the NFL crowd, said South Florida should see a
strong afterglow from the Super Bowl partly because the game is back
again in 2010.

"Our sales for the next three years will be strong," Grossman predicted.
"I think it's going to have the best residual effect ever."
Tom Stieghorst can be reached at tstieghorst@sun-sentinel.com
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