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Hotels Charging Top Dollar For Super Bowl

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By TED JACKOVICS

tjackovics@tampatrib.com

Published: January 21, 2009

TAMPA - 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, such as $1,900 a 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 hosts 150 to 200 residents and guests and will book available apartments for a minimum three-night stay Jan. 30 through Feb. 3 for the Super Bowl.

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.

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.

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

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

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