Super Bowl visits cut short

Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News. Before the Big Game, this billboard warned: "The World is Coming: Get in the Game Detroit."

According to the Detroit News article "Many stayed for just two nights, which may have reduced economic windfall by about $40M." From the article:

Many of the estimated 100,000 tourists who descended on Metro Detroit for Super Bowl XL stayed for two nights, less than the average stay for warm weather cities that have hosted the big game, according to a new analysis.

Some 35,000 hotel rooms in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties and parts of Washtenaw County, were 92 percent full on Super Bowl Sunday -- Feb. 5 -- and the Saturday night before the event, said the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau. But on the Sunday though Friday leading to Super Bowl weekend and the Monday afterward, only 70 percent of those rooms were full.

The shorter visits probably mean Michigan's weather and Detroit's lack of tourist trappings put a $40 million chill on the payoff expected by the region, said David Allardice, a Lawrence Technological University professor who authored an economic impact study in 2003 for the Super Bowl XL Host Committee...

Several corporate event planners say fewer clients traveled to Detroit or they came but cut their stay short. "Most people want to get in a round of golf at these kind of events, and you can't do that in Detroit in February," said Doug Knittle, founder of Razor Gator and PrimeSport, which touts itself as the nation's largest seller of corporate packages to sold-out sporting events. Sales of his pricey Super Bowl packages were down by a third -- to about 3,000 -- compared with those for Jacksonville, which hosted last year's game.

The true economic impact of the Super Bowl is still unclear. In the coming weeks, the visitors bureau will release a comprehensive analysis that will gauge gross economic impact and net impact of the Super Bowl on Metro Detroit, said Renee Monforton, director of communications. The bureau also is trying to put an economic value on the positive international press the region received during Super Bowl week.

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