Rose Bowl Has Tourism Blooming
Next week’s Rose Bowl game, pitting the top-ranked University of Michigan against Washington State University, is on track to draw huge crowds and business for Southern California’s tourism industry.
Hotels in Pasadena and Los Angeles are filling early, with the demand for rooms spilling over to many Orange County hotels, which also expect to be packed.
Some souvenir vendors report that brisk sales have depleted their inventory, forcing them to order additional supplies sooner than they can ever recall. Game tickets, some with a face value of $75, are selling for up to $700, a higher price than Jack French, executive director of the Tournament of Roses Assn., can ever remember.
“The ticket demand is extremely high, and I think tours and hotels have been booked for about a month,” said French, whose group estimates that more than 1 million curbside spectators will view the parade New Year’s Day and that more than 100,000 will fill the stadium for the game, spending an estimated $125 million.
“We’re just getting ready for the onslaught,” French said. “There’s more interest in this game than in recent years.”
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The reason is the game’s matchup. With a victory, Michigan, led by Heisman Trophy winner Charles Woodson, would claim the national championship, the school’s first in 49 years. That prospect is real because the team tops both polls--one of coaches and the other of sportswriters and sportscasters--that determine the title. And the possibility is sending the nation’s largest living alumni group into a buying frenzy.
Equally compelling is Washington State, which is sending its team to the Rose Bowl for the first time in 67 years. Its rabid fans are smaller in number than the Michigan contingent, and more of them may be staying with friends and families in the Southland, tourism and school officials said.
But both sides should attract hordes of boosters--many of whom don’t have tickets to the game but are planning to show up in the Southland anyway for the festivities.
Jill Labberton calls herself “the ultimate Cougar” fan. When the 1988 graduate of Washington State--which is in Pullman near the Idaho border--heard that the team qualified for the Rose Bowl, she bought a $700, three-night hotel package. But no game ticket was included.
“I just have to be there,” said Labberton, a Seattle photographer. “It will be great to support my team.”
The demand for rooms and tickets has been unprecedented at both schools. In their best year previously, the Wolverines brought 3,000 people to the Rose Bowl. But this year, 7,400 are booked for rooms, all in Orange County, where the Michigan Alumni Assn. will be setting up quarters. And the group had to turn away 1,200 requests.
“The interest is overwhelming,” said Steve Grafton, executive director of the school’s alumni association. “Everything we’ve offered--tickets for the game, the parade, the hotel rooms, the seats on the airplane--is sold out.”
At Washington State, the school has not come close to satisfying requests for tickets either. The university received about 350,000 requests for 35,000 tickets.
“We could fill up the Rose Bowl with just our alumni,” said Keith Lincoln, the school’s executive director of alumni relations. “There’s been ungodly demand. The phones do not stop ringing.”
The phones never stopped ringing at the University of Wisconsin when the Badgers played in the 1994 Rose Bowl after a long drought.
Faithful fans spent thousands of dollars on tour packages. When brokers could not supply tickets as promised, many fans were out of luck. That prompted lawsuits and a series of government reforms that essentially made it illegal for tour operators to sell packages including game tickets without guaranteeing that those tickets would be usable.
Nonetheless, Washington state Atty. Gen. Christine Gregoire warned Cougar fans and travel agents “to thoroughly understand what they are buying and selling” to avoid being duped.
In Los Angeles and Santa Monica, Washington State fans and alumni have booked about 2,500 rooms. At their headquarters, the Century Plaza Hotel and Towers in Century City, a block of rooms was set aside for the boosters, then expanded to about 450 rooms because of higher demand. The bookings are comparable to those of the largest schools in previous years, said Bob Groves, the hotel’s director of sales and marketing.
In Pasadena, where Michigan’s football team will be housed, hotel rooms reportedly are 98% booked, about the same as in previous years. And in the surrounding areas of Glendale and Monrovia, rooms are equally hard to find.
Along Colorado Boulevard, through Old Pasadena, which is included in the parade’s route, souvenir merchants already are ringing up strong sales. Lucy Quintana, who manages College Rivalries, said she assembled a waiting list of eager fans and quickly sold her initial allotment of 140 T-shirts. She ordered several hundred more and arranged for her supplier to send T-shirts and sweatshirts by overnight mail if her merchandise runs low.
“I’ve seen at least a 20% increase in sales” over the same period a year ago, said Darryl Rodgers, owner of Tournament Souvenirs on West Del Mar Boulevard in Pasadena. “The day after Christmas is when things really heat up, but I’m already reordering baseball caps, T-shirts and sweatshirts.”
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Orange County’s hotels also expect a strong Rose Bowl season. Newport Beach’s 2,600 hotel rooms will be filled with Michigan alumni, who will be staying in at least 13 hotels there and in nearby cities.
The Newport Beach Marriott and Tennis Club expects 900 Big Blue fans as game day nears.
In Costa Mesa, the Westin South Coast Plaza anticipates that 90% of its rooms will be taken by Michigan boosters. The Doubletree Hotel set aside 85% of its rooms for Wolverine fans.
“We’re sold out,” said Mark Tunney, director of marketing at the Anaheim Marriott, where a Washington State contingent will be staying.
“If we had a bigger hotel, we could take more business,” he said.
The bowl boom “gives us an extra shot in the arm,” said Rosalind Williams, president and chief executive officer of the Newport Beach Conference and Visitors Bureau. “Ordinarily, this time of year would be pretty dead.”
