PITTSBURGH — The hospitality industry in Pittsburgh is gearing up this week for one of the biggest events the city has ever hosted. Next week, more than half a million people will descend on the city over the three-day NFL Draft event.
“My thought was this is our Super Bowl,” said John Graf, president and CEO of the Priory Hospitality Group.
Graf runs the Priory Hotel on the North Side and Mansions on Fifth in Shadyside. Each offers an historic, intimate and unique experience, compared to the larger downtown hotels.
Rooms have been filling up slowly over the last several weeks.
“It’s the kind of thing where we’re not filled up yet, but I’m confident we will be. And I think we’re gonna offer a really neat experience for people once they get here,” Graf said.
The Priory is hosting the Steel City Draft Night Watch Party with 1970s-era Steelers joining in on the party. Tickets can be purchased in advance for the event.
The hotel is also offering shuttle rides to get guests as close as possible to the Draft footprint on the North Shore.
The experience, coupled with the proximity to the stadium, which is within walking distance, comes at a premium.
“We’re in the $1,100 dollar range for a single room here at the Priory, and we’re about $100 less at Mansions on Fifth,” Graf said. “This is kind of a windfall. This is a little bit of a manna from heaven situation.”
Both hotels have limited availability, especially for Wednesday and Thursday nights.
“We know the downtown area is basically sold out at this point, and that’s starting to filter out into a lot of our other communities… We also know that this fan base is a last-minute type of booking fan base,” said Jerad Bachar with Visit Pittsburgh.
The Pittsburgh Organizing Committee said as of early April, hotel occupancy citywide was nearly 60 percent for draft days and nearly 68 percent for Thursday night.
Historically, the committee said the NFL Draft sees a last-minute surge in reservations. They say around 60 percent of bookings happen in the last 30 days, and 20 percent of bookings happen within the final week.
“We’re seeing really strong demand across the city and across the region, really exponentially higher than what we see from recent NFL games, demand at the level of some of the biggest concerts that have come to Pittsburgh,” said AirBnB spokesman Kevin Munoz. “And we want more and more folks to participate in hosting.”
“70 percent of our listings are under $500 a night, which is a really great rate for such a competitive weekend,” he said.
Munoz said AirBnB is one of the more flexible and affordable options for an event like the NFL Draft, especially for large groups. He also emphasized the platform is doing its part to prevent parties, including proactively screening reservations and blocking ones that may be more inclined to disruptive parties, encouraging hosts to use noise detectors which the platform provides free of charge and encouraging neighbors to report any issues to the company’s tipline.
“We have a global ban on disruptive parties, and we want to ensure that no one interested in having a disruptive party is booking on AirBnB,” Munoz said.
The Pittsburgh Organizing Committee said based on past trends, around 80 percent of visitors who choose to book overnight accommodations for the NFL Draft will stay in hotels, and about 20 percent will stay in short-term rentals.
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