Hotels, Restaurants Ready For Sun Bowl Visitors
All the Hyundai Sun Bowl tickets have been sold.
The hotel rooms are filling up.
And now the restaurants are bracing for an assault of Notre Dame and Miami fans.
What does that mean in terms of potential economic impact for the Borderland?
Many sportswriters around the country are calling the Fighting Irish versus The “U” in the December 31st Sun Bowl a five-star matchup. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a hotel or restaurant owner in El Paso that disagrees.
“The buzz is just tremendous,” said Joe Frandina, owner and general manager of the Downtown Holiday Inn Express and current president of the El Paso Hotel-Motel Association. “It looks real good for the hotel business and I’m sure the restaurants.”
Frandina said that since Sunday’s announcement, hotels in El Paso — including his own — have been bombarded by reservation requests for the weekend of the game. He said his Downtown Holiday Inn Express downtown is already at 50-percent capacity for the 30th and 31st, despite higher rates for that weekend. And he expects it to sell out by the end of the week.
He added that since Notre Dame is one of the teams involved, this year’s game has the potential to be the biggest in terms of economic impact for the Borderland. And that statement carries some weight since Frandina has some previous experience as a hotel owner with the Fighting Irish.
“That was in Colorado Springs,” he said. “Notre Dame was in to play the Air Force Academy. It was just a regular game, but they came in like it was like a military effort.”
And when that army of Irish fans arrive, they’ll have to eat somewhere.
“This is truly an immense game,” said Leo Duran, owner of El Paso’s L and J Cafe. “This will definitely be a bigger impact than in the past.”
Duran said he normally sees a 10 to 15 percent jump at the cash register due to the Sun Bowl game. This year he’s projecting double that, or a 20 to 30 percent increase in sales.
“We are definitely ordering more food and getting ready,” he added.
