Whether called the Super Bowl or the more generic Big Game, the football match on Feb. 13 was a big deal for tourism in Los Angeles County.
Thousands of visitors came to the city to watch the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals go head-to-head at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. And with those visitors came a lot of spending at Valley hotels.
Richard Uribe, general manager of the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills, said in a statement that while hotels in downtown and Inglewood will sell out, one can still get rooms in the $700 to $800 range for a three-night minimum stay.
The Warner Center Marriott is managed by Merritt Hospitality, a Norwalk, Conn. company doing business as HEI Hotels and Resorts Inc., a third-party hotel management firm.
“HEI hotels are located a little further away from the stadium so we will run about 70 percent occupancy over the Super Bowl,” Uribe said. “The hotels closer to the stadium will benefit but as you move further away there is enough inventory to meet the demand for the Super Bowl.”
In addition to the Marriott in Woodland Hills, HEI also manages the Marriott Costa Mesa and the Westin Pasadena.
Multiple-day vacations
Alan Tate, general manager of the Burbank Airport Marriott, said that he absolutely was expecting to see an influx of visitors for the Super Bowl.
“That sells out all the hotels in the immediate area and then presses out to the surrounding hotels in the L.A. basin as well,” Tate said.
The ease of getting in and out of Hollywood Burbank Airport, located across the street from the hotel, was also a draw for those fans coming into town for the game, he added.
Guests will come out a few days early and visit other attractions in the area, including Universal Studios Hollywood theme park and some of the others in the area, such as Disneyland and Six Flags Magic Mountain.
“People will come in on Wednesday or Thursday and do those things and then go to the game on Sunday,” Tate said. “The ease of getting out of Burbank is certainly a draw and the central location to other things to do here in Southern California while here for the Super Bowl is certainly as well.”
The hotel just doesn’t get fans coming out for the game. The media who come from all the world to cover the Super Bowl will stay there, too.
“We do get some of those visitors as well,” Tate said.
Scott Mills, general manager of The Garland in North Hollywood, said his hotel’s central location made it an attractive place to stay for out-of-town visitors here to see the game.
“We are a busy hotel regardless. But that does help the demand as we come out of the Omicron portion of the pandemic,” Mills said. “It helps with that weekend, and it helps push rates a little bit higher due to supply and demand.”
The Garland was already sold out from the Thursday before the game to the day after, he added.
Visitors like to be centrally located and The Garland is conducive to someone coming in for the game but that is just one afternoon, Mills continued.
“They want to go to Universal Studios and Hollywood and see other parts of the city,” he said. “We are ideally located for that and often used as a home base and the Super Bowl is no different.”
Like Tate at the Burbank Airport Marriott, Mills also does business with non-fans who come in for the game.
“We do have some Super Bowl related business that the NFL has contracted with many hotels around the city for rooms for their components of their Super Bowl program,” Mills said.
Economic impact
L.A. County stood to gain between $234 million and $477 million in economic benefits, according to an economic impact study done for the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission released in September of last year by Micronomics, a Los Angeles economic research and consulting firm.
Roy Weinstein, managing director of the research firm, called the Super Bowl “the granddaddy” of iconic events in an area that is known for iconic events – The Rose Bowl and Rose Parade, the Emmys, Grammys and Oscars.
“But the Super Bowl is without equal, as far as L.A. is concerned,” Weinstein said in an interview. “It produces an economic impact that is absolutely extraordinary, and it does so this year despite the pandemic.”
Super Bowl LVI marks the eighth time since the Big Game started in 1967 that it has been played in Los Angeles, which also hosted the first Super Bowl game. That is third on the all-time list, following only Miami (11 games) and New Orleans (10 games).
But L.A. has not been the site of the game since January 1993 when the Dallas Cowboys beat the Buffalo Bills, 52-17 in Super Bowl XXVII. The game, seen by an estimated 91 million viewers, took place at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, making it the last NFL championship game to date to be played in a non-NFL stadium.
The Micronomics report said that at the low end, there would be 100,000 people coming in for the game, while the high end had the number at 150,000. The average stay was estimated at four days and three nights, with an average daytime spend of $200 to $300 per person.
The numbers included in the report were based on data received from the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board and local hotels, as well as on what historically has taken place in the past with such games as the Rose Bowl, which takes place every year on Jan. 1, Weinstein said.
“Hotels are sold out and have been sold out for Super Bowl week for a long time,” he added.
Non-football attractions
In the week leading up to it, there are plenty of tourist-attracting events, from those made possible by the NFL Foundation Super Bowl Legacy Grants and the Super Bowl LVI Host Committee to community greening projects and Salute to Service events to honor the military and veterans.
According to the list of events released by the NFL, none of them took place in the San Fernando Valley. However, the Rams held a Fan Rally on Monday before the game at Oaks Christian School in Westlake Village.
Micronomics’s Weinstein said that perhaps the reason that the Valley was not picked as location for a pre-Super Bowl event was because it was not on the radar enough.
There are other venues where events are taking place, including a number in Inglewood, that are accustomed to hosting such events as those taking place the week before the Super Bowl, Weinstein said.
“The ultimate choice of where all the pre-game stuff occurs is a reflection of where the stadium is and where people who have come to town in the past have been accustomed to spend time and engage in events,” Weinstein added.
The Valley, however, could be on the radar of the sports and entertainment commission and become a competitor for hosting an event tied to other sporting contests that the commission is planning to do. Those include a potential of Los Angeles being named a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup matches and ancillary events.
“The Valley needs to reach out to the commission in the future,” Weinstein said.