The city of San Jose "won't reap" the nearly $1.9M in additional hotel taxes it forecast Super Bowl week would deliver due to "three out of every 10 hotel rooms" being vacant, according to Matthew Artz of the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS. Instead of selling out every room during Super Bowl week, preliminary figures showed area hotels "actually welcomed fewer guests than the same week last year." A Smith Travel Research report showed that the city "will likely receive about $600,000 in hotel taxes." Artz noted that is "not enough to offset" the $1.25M in costs "mostly for police services during Super Bowl week." City officials "cautioned that the current data only account" for about 85% of hotel rooms and "doesn't include revenue from Airbnb, sales taxes or airport landing fees." Still, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo "was realistic" about the hotel tax revenues. He said, "We won't meet that projection. But, I expect that when ... we aggregate all of these, that the city will have done quite well." Artz noted higher room rates helped hotels bring in "record sales" Super Bowl weekend, but that was "not enough to offset poor occupancy during the entire week leading up to the game." City officials said San Jose's hotel tax revenue forecast "fell short" because it was based in part on figures from past Super Bowls hosted by Indianapolis and New Orleans. Neither of those cities had to "compete against a tourist behemoth" like S.F. for guests. Meanwhile, the S.F. Travel Association reported last week that "hotel tax collections increased" more than $5.3M during the last four days of Super Bowl week. In contrast to San Jose, that "would be enough to cover the city's estimated cost for hosting most of the week's activities" (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 3/9).
