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Hotel Rooms Still Available For Super Bowl -- At Full Price

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By TED JACKOVICS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 20, 2009

TAMPA - It might not be necessary for visitors with Super Bowl tickets that cost from $500 to $1,000 to sell some to pay their hotel bills, but it could help.

Hotel rooms remain available in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties for the Feb. 1 Super Bowl weekend. But visitors can expect to pay the rack rate, the highest price a hotel lists for each room, or close to it, and book for at least three or four nights.

Depending upon the quality of the hotel, the price could be at least twice the average daily rate of $118.83 Hillsborough County hoteliers took in for occupied rooms last January.

There are also special accommodations, like $1,900 per night and up for apartments on The World, a 644-foot, 12-deck ship that's sailing into Tampa's Cruise Terminal 6 for the game. The World will take between 150 to 200 guests who book a minimum three-night stay from Jan. 30 through Feb. 3.

Another plan is USA3000's $578 "No hotels needed" round trip fare on a flight that leaves Pittsburgh at 7:30 a.m. Feb. 1 and departs Tampa after the game at 12:30 a.m. JetBlue Airways also is creating Tampa-Pittsburgh flights for the game, but an overnight stay is required.

Hotel demand appears to be growing since the Super Bowl teams – the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers – were determined last weekend, said Robin Grabowski, president of the Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce.

That's despite hotel cancellations from Philadelphia area tour groups when the Cardinals beat the Eagles on Sunday.

Whether pent-up Super Bowl demand from fans of the Cardinals, making their first appearance in the game, and football fans in general will compensate for the loss of an East Coast team remains to be seen for local hoteliers and others.

"We will have a better idea toward the end of the week about how reservations are going," Grabowski said.

The National Football League reserved about 20,000 rooms for officials, guests, the media and participating teams, including 7,800 of Hillsborough's 21,500 hotel rooms; 3,600 of Pinellas's 30,500 rooms; and 8,700 out of more than 100,000 rooms in the Orlando area.

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at (813) 259-7817.

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