A bump that lasts
Hotels hope Super Bowl keeps giving down the line
THE big game was barely a year away, and the downtown Four Seasons Hotel needed to look its best. General manager Tom Segesta gave the contractors, designers and project managers an ultimatum.
“Our deadline is the Super Bowl. There’s no ifs, ands or buts,” Segesta recalled saying on Jan. 6, 2016. “If you can do the project and deliver by the Super Bowl, wonderful. If you don’ t think you can, you’re welcome to leave and we’ll find someone else .”
Everyone stayed put. And despite such hiccups as the front doors getting damaged during shipping and the restaurant tables arriving with too-shiny brass, the multimillion-dollar renovation was completed with time to spare. The Four Seasons’ new lobby, bourbon barand Topgolf-branded simulator opened Jan. 21.
The Four Seasons, like many other hotels, is sold out Thursday through Sunday for Super Bowl LI and what will be the busiest weekend of the year. More importantly, hoteliers believe the city’s exposure could attract more visitors to Houston long after the game’s final whistle blows.
The timing is fortuitous. Occupancy faltered with the price of oil, and hotels planned before the oilprice slump have added rooms to the suddenly overbuilt market.
By the end of 2017, the Houston area will have added more than 11,000 rooms since 2015, said Randy McCaslin, a managing director of CB RE Hotels. This year alone it will add5,100 hotel rooms.
“It’s not overbuilt in the sense that people speculated and got caught with their pants down,” said Patrick Jankowski, senior vice president of research for the Greater Houston Partnership. “It’s overbuilt in the sense that the market softened quicker than they thought it would.”
Hotel occupancy reached a high point in 2014 at 72 percent, McCaslin said, and then bottomed out in 2016 at an estimated
“We believe Houston has an opportunity to be on the world stage. And what an opportunity to show the world what Houston’s all about.” Tom Segesta, Four Seasons general manager