A room at the Motel 6 in Gentilly with a view of the Interstate 10 Industrial Canal is probably not your idea of luxury accommodation for $625 a night.
Terrence Adams, a Detroit Lions fan from suburban Farmington, Michigan, booked the original hotel last year shortly after Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas. His plans changed after the Lions lost to the Washington coach in last week’s divisional playoffs.
“I don’t see them going to New Orleans anymore, so I have these rooms available for any Chiefs, Bills, Eagles or Commanders fans who are going to benefit the cause,” Adams said.
He offers four “king” rooms with four double beds and Motel 6’s standard Orange franchise decor. Reach the big show.
A New Orleans hotel and parking lot decorated for Super Bowl LIX on Friday, January 24, 2025.
According to reservation agents, few of the city’s 44,000 hotel rooms will be available around the time of the Feb. 9 Super Bowl.
“When it comes down to the Super Bowl, it’s a question of supply and demand,” said Travis Tag, general manager of France’s Omni Royal Orleans and current president of the Greater New Orleans Hotel and Lodging Association.
“This is a great opportunity for New Orleans and hotels to take advantage of a once-a-year event,” says Tague.
All big events make New Orleans expensive, but the Super Bowl is unique. The NFL announced a year ago that numerous host city hotels will offer up to 90% of their rooms to large blocks of guests, including NFL staff, competition, sponsors, media, halftime entertainers, and halftime entertainers. We are asking you to commit to. A large force of them.
That means Super Bowl host cities often see record prices for the long weekend, as Las Vegas did last year.
Pedestrians walk along Canal Street near the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel on Friday, July 7, 2023.
Average daily room rates for the Super Bowl in New Orleans won’t be known until late February, but they may equal the record rates seen at the three-day Taylor Swift concert series at Caesars Superdome last October. It may exceed that. Part of the pop star’s ERAS tour, said Colin Sherman, director of hospitality analytics at Costar Group, which tracks industry data.
“New Orleans’ last Super Bowl (2013) was the previous record until Taylor Swift came along,” Sherman said.
The average room rate in New Orleans for Swift’s three-day visit was $435 per night, compared to the previous record of $390 more than a decade ago when the Baltimore Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers at the Superdome. Sherman said this year’s Super Bowl average looks like it will exceed $500, but that’s less than last year’s Las Vegas average of $692.
new benchmark
“Las Vegas has become the new benchmark for Super Bowl hotel rates,” said Kyla Moore, an analyst with Expedia Group, who follows industry trends. It was the first time the Super Bowl was held in Sin City, which had just completed the $1.9 billion Allegiant Stadium.
Las Vegas’ extremely high average rates are due to the city’s “robust hotel inventory” (more than 100,000 rooms in the core “Vegas Strip” area alone, and all the other sports, gambling, and entertainment options on offer). was also being driven.
Still, average room rates in Las Vegas and New Orleans don’t tell the full story. Because surge prices for individual rooms booked at the last moment are many times higher.
Stage and flooring to lower crews outside Caesar’s Superdome in preparation for Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on Monday, January 6, 2024 (Photo by Chris Granger, Times-Picayune)
The average rates tracked by Costar and Expedia are for “core” hotel inventory located in New Orleans’ most desirable areas, such as the French District and central business and warehouse districts. They don’t get bed-and-breakfast operators or short-term renters who join the acts, like Motel 6 Adams offers, like Motel 6 Adams offers.
peak rate
The best rates for available rooms were in the central business district, averaging $1,200 a night, but the best deals were in New Orleans East and Slidell, according to Moore.
The Holiday Inn on Frantage Road in Slidell was offering rooms for just under $600 a night during Super Bowl weekend, according to IHG reservations manager Derek Lee.
But staying on the South Shore carries a big premium, Lee said. Guests wanting the Holiday Inn on North Causeway in Metairie will have to pay nearly $1,200 a night for a standard king room.
“It was the same kind of number for a Taylor Swift concert,” he said.
New Orleans also has a quirky hotel sector compared to other Super Bowl host cities, with more small boutique hotels and hybrid guesthouse-type accommodations.
Moore said some of these notable examples include Room the New Orleans, which transformed a 200-year-old Melrose mansion on Esplanade Avenue into a 21-suite guest house with names like the Kitty Room. Only two suites remained, priced at $3,169 a night, she said.
Another hybrid option was 888 Baronne St., which had 10 of its 60 apartments remaining for Super Bowl weekend, with three-day reservations ranging from $18,751 to $19,391. The latter is a penthouse with a balcony and can sleep up to 12, including a pull-out sofa bed.
