O.C. Hotel Business Blooming : Ohio State Rose Bowl Retinue Fills Rooms in Slow Season

You can cheer, schmooze, even write fan letters, but sometimes getting Rose Bowl football teams and fans to spend a chunk of an estimated $100 million in Orange County comes down to luck.

The Westin South Coast Plaza hotel, for example, has booked nearly all of its 390 rooms during the traditionally slow week between Christmas and New Year’s for Big Ten winner Ohio State’s football team and their families, friends and Ohio media. Though the Westin no doubt helped itself by wooing the Buckeyes all season long, ultimately this year’s booking seems to have turned on superstition.

Two years ago, the Buckeyes defeated Fresno State in the Disneyland Pigskin Classic and guess where they slept?

“We won staying at the Westin two years ago,” said Larry Petroff, director of football operations for Ohio State, which plays Arizona State University in the Rose Bowl. “We didn’t want to jinx ourselves.”

Through hard work and a lucky break or two, Orange County hotels, shops and restaurants expect to reap millions of dollars from the Buckeyes and their fans, who have booked five-day stays in at least seven local establishments.

The main beneficiary seems to be Newport Beach, where booster clubs, Buckeye faithful and high school marching bands performing in the Tournament of Roses Parade have reserved more than 2,500 of the city’s 2,600 hotel rooms. Playing host to the bowl-bound visitors in Newport Beach are the Four Seasons Hotel, the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel and Tennis Club, the Hyatt Newporter, the Sutton Place Hotel, the Sheraton Hotel Newport Beach and the Marriott Suites Newport Beach.

“If we didn’t have the Rose Bowl business again this year, occupancy would definitely be down during this slow time of year,” said the Westin’s marketing director, Bonnie Best, who expects the Costa Mesa hotel to take in more than $200,000 during Rose Bowl week. “This is really fun business, and we are glad to get it.”

Because main alumni groups for both universities will be staying in the Los Angeles area, locals probably won’t notice the football hoopla quite as much as last year, when bowl-starved Northwestern University fans packed the Westin and staged a pre-bowl pep rally that drew an estimated 10,000. Two years ago, the Athletic Department from Big Ten winner Penn State also headquartered at the Westin.

“It’s not going to be as sexy as last year because we don’t have the one large single group,” said Rosalind Williams, president and chief executive officer of the Newport Beach Conference & Visitors Center. “But at the end of the day, our success is counted by how many rooms are full, and by that measure it’s a win this year.”

Traditionally, Los Angeles has attracted virtually all Rose Bowl business because of its many tourist attractions and proximity to Pasadena, site of the New Year’s Day game. However, over the last three years, an aggressive local marketing campaign and rising concerns from out-of-state visitors about crime in Los Angeles, has helped Orange County merchants land a piece of the Rose Bowl business.

The Orange County pitch, which is directed mainly at Big Ten schools since their fans generally travel farther, stay longer and therefore spend more money than their Pac 10 counterparts, began in preseason. In July, the Newport Beach Conference & Visitors Center co-sponsored a Big Ten coaches and player luncheon to entice teams to choose the seaside community.

As the season progressed, several hoteliers regularly dispatched congratulatory messages to winning teams with reminders of the advantages of Orange County.

“We stay in touch with teams that have any chance at all of going to the Rose Bowl,” said Best, who adds a large banner will be hoisted outside the hotel to welcome the Buckeyes to the Westin.

Orange County might have fared even better this year if Ohio State’s main alumni group had not been under contract to stay at a Los Angeles area hotel. The Buckeye group will be at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City. Usually, fans like to reserve rooms close to their football teams, say hoteliers.

“We were really hoping for Penn State or the University of Michigan,” said Williams. “But we still did fine with Ohio State.”

Local marketers, who always like to see more distant teams such as Oregon or Washington win the Pac 10 bowl berth, say Arizona State’s appearance in the Rose Bowl isn’t helping their bottom line. Many Arizona State alumni already live in Southern California and don’t need local hotel rooms.

But marketers concede that, from a business standpoint, Arizona State is preferable to Rose Bowl appearances by USC or UCLA, whose fans generally can squeeze their bowl celebrations into a single, relatively inexpensive day.