Downtown hotels brimming with All-Star visitors

Hotel rooms are hard to find Downtown and tourism boosters are eager to tap into what could be tens of millions of dollars spent within the next week by area residents and visitors.

It's time for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Cincinnati.

Although the big game happens next week on Tuesday, city and county leaders and tourism boosters spent about an hour Tuesday in a pep rally to celebrate events planned over the next week. The kickoff of one of the largest events Friday – FanFest at the Duke Energy Convention Center – will be the culmination of more than two years of working with Major League Baseball and others to coordinate events.

And officials can take solace in Cincinnati being the capital of the baseball world – at least for a few days.

"We might be considered a small-market team, a small city, but we like to do things big," said Phil Castellini, chief operating officer of the Cincinnati Reds, said while at the Westin Cincinnati Hotel.

About 200,000 visitors are expected Downtown between Friday and July 14. The event is among the largest Cincinnati has hosted since the World Choir Games in 2012.

Major League Baseball has booked more than 16,000 room nights at Downtown hotels in the days leading up to next week Tuesday. That figure doesn't include rooms booked outside of the MLB block or people who are renting spaces through Airbnb or similar sites.

There are about 28,000 hotel rooms in Greater Cincinnati – about 4,000 of which are Downtown, said Julie Calvert, a vice president at the Cincinnati USA Convention & Visitors Bureau. She admits it may be tough to find room near Downtown for a few days because of what was committed to host MLB players, executives, team officials, media and others.

The Downtown hotels are: 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnatian Hotel, Garfield Suites Hotel, Hampton Inn & Suites, Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza, Homewood Suites, Hyatt Regency Cincinnati, Millennium Hotel Cincinnati, Renaissance Cincinnati Downtown Hotel, Residence Inn Cincinnati Downtown, and the Westin.

"MLB contracted 95 percent of the inventory Downtown, and virtually each room is filled up," Calvert said.

The big events have had a steep impact on prices at hotels in and near the Interstate 275 loop around Cincinnati. Rooms booked at the Courtyard Cincinnati Midtown/Rookwood in Norwood for this weekend could cost $329 a night. The following week, an online search done Tuesday showed the price would be $169 a night.

Calvert said All-Star Game festivities could pump about $60 million into Greater Cincinnati's economy based on estimates of similar events in St. Louis and Minneapolis.

Calvert said the figure is estimated from what visitors will spend directly on things such as hotel rooms, food and entertainment to what the sports league spends on caterers and contractors. She said it would also include money spent by residents to host an All-Star Game party at their home.

Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black said MLB's decision to pick Cincinnati validates the league's confidence in the city and its ability to host large events. He said he relishes the chance for the world to be impressed by the city's assets including its neighborhoods and parks.

"Events such as the All-Star Game are transformational," Black said.

Castellini said the impact of the All-Star Game will be felt in the region for some time because MLB and other donors are investing in nine "legacy" community projects from Dayton to Northern Kentucky. Several officials said the deep partnerships involving volunteers, the city, Hamilton County, Major League Baseball and businesses helped Cincinnati land the games and put it in the position to have a big impact.

Success from the All-Star Game could help the city's efforts in securing big events in the future. In a study released in May, tourism officials said 24.1 million visitors to the three-state, 15-county region are responsible for about $4.4 billion of spending annually. Tourism Economics and Longwoods International conducted the study on behalf of Cincinnati USA Convention & Visitors Bureau, meetNKY, and the Cincinnati USA Regional Tourism Network. The study said tourism helped support more than 74,000 jobs – or one in 14 – in the region.