BROOMFIELD, Colorado—Miami hoteliers can boast about setting all-time average-rate records for a Super Bowl weekend.
Since 2011, STR has analyzed the impact on the hotel market of the Super Bowl host city, both in terms of absolute performance and year-over-year change. This was the second year in which STR made a prediction about expected performance. Blake Reiter, Director of Custom Forecasts, projected record-setting ADR levels of between $520 and $540 during the weekend.
Reiter actually underestimated the pricing power of hotels for Super Bowl 54; Miami/Hialeah market hotels ended the weekend with $617 average daily rate, the highest ever recorded for an entire market during Super Bowl weekend (defined as the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night encompassing the game).
Our analysis of total performance breaks the data down by the following locations:
- overall Miami-Hialeah market;
- the submarkets: Miami Airport/Civic Center, Miami Beach, Miami CBD/North, and Miami South; and
- the City of Miami.
Occupancy
The Miami CBD-North submarket, with 11,000 rooms, achieved the highest occupancy at 96.5% for the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights of Super Bowl weekend, which was comparable to what the Atlanta CBD achieved for the 2019 Super Bowl. Occupancy levels were strong across the entire market, though slightly lower for the Miami South submarket and the City of Miami as a whole. Altogether, the Miami/Hialeah market achieved a nearly 93% Super Bowl weekend occupancy, which represented an 11.3% occupancy increase from last year.
ADR
While absolute average rates ranged significantly through the submarkets, hotels in all areas experienced a lift. Hotels located in the City of Miami experienced the smallest gain in average rates, at 56%. On the other of the spectrum, Miami Beach hotels pushed their collective three-day ADR to a whopping $924, a 170% gain over last year. Miami CBD-North hotels realized the second-greatest ADR lift for the weekend, at 154%. Overall, the Miami/Hialeah market as a whole hit a record-setting average rate of $617, shattering the absolute average rate of any other hosting market. The previous record was $403, set in 2016 in San Francisco/San Jose.
RevPAR year-over-year percent change
In the end, the Miami Beach and Miami CBD-North submarkets went neck and neck for the greatest weekend RevPAR gain, with Miami Beach hotels gaining the slight edge. Overall, RevPAR gains in all geographic areas of the market ranged from 65% to 202%. While this range seems vast, the different regions of Atlanta demonstrated a range of 74% to 812%, with the Atlanta CBD achieving the top increase.
Comparing this performance to the nine previous Super Bowl host cities provides context to the annual gains attributable to the event. The following charts examine the comparative impact of all ten host markets, first for the weekend of the Super Bowl itself, and then for the two weeks leading up to the game.
Historical occupancy over Super Bowl weekend
The Miami/Hialeah market's Super Bowl occupancy performance was in line with STR expectations. As a midsize top 25 market with 60,000 rooms, and one that runs in the upper 80s in occupancy on February weekends, it would have been shocking if the Super Bowl weekend occupancy was anything less than 90%. The prior year, Atlanta only hit a Super Bowl occupancy of 76%, but that market is comparatively quiet in February and has 100,000 rooms to fill.
Historical ADR over Super Bowl weekend
Absolute average rate was the one data point where Miami/Hialeah dwarfed all other host markets during Super Bowl weekend. Even though the market's ADR gain fell on the lower end of what other host markets have achieved, the ability of Miami hotels to revenue-manage the event to such stunning absolute numbers is impressive. No other market has come close to reaching the $617 average rate achieved by the Miami/Hialeah market, with the runner-up (San Francisco/San Jose) more than $200 lower.
Historical RevPAR change over Super Bowl weekend
Including 2020, the straight-average market RevPAR lift during the Super Bowl weekend over the last ten events is 413%. Miami/Hialeah's lift of 175% is below that average, but well above STR's RevPAR-gain predictions for this year (127% to 144%). A lower-than-average increase was expected on the sheer basis that February performance for the Miami/Hialeah market is usually strong (especially occupancy), so upward potential is much more limited than for host cities with fewer rooms to fill and lower baseline February performance levels (Minneapolis, Indianapolis). Overall, Miami/Hialeah's Super Bowl RevPAR gain is second-lowest only to New York's, a market that also experiences strong February baseline occupancy levels and is one of the largest hotel markets in the country.
Two weeks leading up to a Super Bowl
Looking at the markets for a full two weeks prior to and including the Super Bowl, we see a somewhat similar story.
The straight-average two-week RevPAR lift over the past nine years is 91%, and again, Miami/Hialeah fell below that due to the baseline February strength of the market. However, Miami's two-week gain exceeded both that of the New York and San Francisco markets. The three smallest markets leveraged 100+% RevPAR changes in the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, with Minneapolis/St. Paul trailing Indianapolis.
Overall, Miami/Hialeah's hotels showed a remarkable ability to capitalize on hosting the Super Bowl, exceeding STR's predictions on average rate. While overall RevPAR gains fell well below average compared to the combined group of all last ten host cities, this was expected given how strong February weekends normally area in the South Florida area. The real achievement is the ability of nearly 60,000 hotel rooms to achieve a collective $600+ average rate for the weekend, well above any other Super Bowl host market.
Carter Wilson is SVP of consulting & analytics for STR.
This article represents an interpretation of data collected by STR, parent company of HNN. Please feel free to comment or contact an editor with any questions or concerns.