Classic expected to boost revenue, hotels expected to hike prices

By Frenika Johnson
DIGEST Staff Reporter
With the State Farm Bayou Classic returning to New Orleans this year, local businesses and the city’s economy will reiceve a much needed surge with the influx of fans from both Grambling and Southern University.
It’s no secret that the Bayou Classic generates a significant amount of revenue which impacts the local businesses in the New Orleans and surrounding areas.
According to officials with the New Orleans Convention and Vistors Bureau, the success of the Classic is a major source of tourism revenue that they estimate will bring in more than one million dollars from the 66,000 fans expected to attend the game this year.
“We are expecting a big turnout since the Classic is returning to New Orleans,” said Susan Green, a representative for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Due to the significant damage the city received from Hurricane Katrina last year, 2005’s Bayou Classic had to be relocated to the city of Houston. But bow that the waters have receded and the city cleaned up, officials said more than 30 hotels and local businesses are opened in time to collect revenue generated by the sporting event.
The Wyndham New Orleans at Canal Place the Whitney Hotel are just two of the hotels that will be opened, excluding special amenities, like room service and valet parking.
But with the city still not completely rejuvenated, and still a limited number of hotel beds available to visiting fans, some fans fear hotels will begin price gouging Classic weekend, something many Classic supporters said have aggravated them for years.
Representatives with The Quality Inn & Suite’s on O’Keefe Avenue said lodging prices will increase nearly 60 percent due to the expected Bayou Classic crowd.
In addition, the Best Western St. Christopher, Pelham Hotel New Orleans and Courtyard New Orleans Downtown are among some of the other hotels that will be charging nearly 50 percent more for lodging during the Classic.
Officials with the Sheraton New Orleans said the hotel is charging 41 percent more for lodging.
Hotel representatives said the drastic increase in hotel prices provides the extra money needed to support extra employees on staff to provide a comfortable stay to guests.
According to Toussaint Pierre, a junior accounting and e-business major from Baton Rouge, price gouging is an unfair business practice because the rate hike is not due to seasonal traffic.
“The hotels impose higher rates because there is a large volume of African-American people flocking to New Orleans,” Pierre said. “If the people are coming to provide the city with considerable financial benefit in the form of tourism, it is outrageous that this sector of business should respond by raising prices because of the perception that Black people will leave hotel rooms in a deplorable condition.”