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Hotel Rooms Still Available For Super Bowl Weekend Visitors

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By TED JACKOVICS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 27, 2009

TAMPA - Hotel rooms remain for those seeking last-minute accommodations for Super Bowl weekend.
Both Visit St. Petersburg/Clearwater and Tampa Bay & Co., the Pinellas and Hillsborough county visitors bureaus, reported accommodations were available for this weekend as of Tuesday afternoon.

Accommodations at more than a dozen Tampa hotels ranged from about $189 to $800, with three-or-four night minimum stays, on the visittampabay.com Web site's Super Bowl link.

At least 60 hotels were listed with weekend accommodations on visitstpeteclearwater.com/superbowl/hot-superbowl-deals.

Gulf-front rooms were as low as $249, while inland water-view condo vacation rentals started at $150.

Officials at both visitors bureaus will have to wait weeks for tax records to provide an accurate appraisal of visitors' expenditures.

"It's still a little early to tell," said Steve Hayes, executive vice president of Tampa Bay & Co.

One indication that Super Bowl traffic is strengthening is that since Jan. 18, when the Pinellas visitors bureau bought more than 100 "key words" on Google.com to increase the bureau's visibility among people searching for accommodations, online visits have increased 300 percent, Visit St. Petersburg/Clearwater deputy director David Downing 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 30,500 Pinellas' rooms; and 8,700 of the Orlando area's 100,000 rooms.

With an estimated 100,000 overall expected to descend on Tampa with or without tickets to the game, that still leaves plenty of accommodations in the area.

Tribune reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at tjackovics@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7817.

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