Feb. 16–Hotels were indeed big winners of Super Bowl LII dollars.
Twin Cities hotels reported the highest increase in revenue per available room (RevPAR) for a Super Bowl host market since Indianapolis hosted the Big Game in 2012.
During the weekend of Feb. 2-4, the Minneapolis/St. Paul hotel market posted an average occupancy level of 92.5 percent and an average daily rate (ADR) of $354.41.
As a result, RevPAR increased 626 percent compared with the same weekend last year.
"The combination of lower hotel supply and a typically slow time of year for the market resulted in extraordinary performance gains for Minneapolis," said Hannah Smith, a consultant with STR, which tracks hotel supply and demand.
Tennessee-based STR regularly analyzes Super Bowl hotel data and produced the report using information from more than 42,000 rooms at hotels in Minneapolis, St. Paul and a good number of suburbs.
Indianapolis had a higher percentage jump in revenue per available room but had a much smaller hotel inventory, STR said. RevPAR is a key measurement to track the health of a hospitality market.
Not surprisingly, hotels in downtown Minneapolis — where the game was played and most of the Super Bowl activities and events took place — performed the best.
Hotels in the Minneapolis central business district, better known as downtown, had a RevPAR increase of 873 percent for the weekend. Occupancy in downtown was 99 percent, and the average rate for the weekend was $492.38.
The weeks before the Super Bowl also boosted the market, with RevPAR 137 percent higher during the two-week lead up to the event.
