ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Rays’ trip to the World Series is turning what is normally a quiet stretch of the year into a busy one for hotels and vacation rental owners in St. Petersburg and across Pinellas County.
The Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers opened the series in Milwaukee, and the matchup shifts to St. Petersburg for Games 3 and 4. Tampa Bay is set to host Milwaukee at Tropicana Field on Monday night. Both franchises are chasing their first championship.
The Hollander Hotel in St. Petersburg has been fully booked since Friday and expects to stay that way through Wednesday, its general manager said. Some guests reserved rooms through Wednesday in case a game is played that night, and a few plan to stay into Thursday. She said that level of demand is unusual for a period the hotel treats as its offseason.
The Brewers are expected to stay at The Vinoy, a historic resort on the St. Petersburg waterfront that dates to the 1920s.
The St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce pointed to Major League Baseball estimates that a single postseason game can bring as much as $7 million in economic impact to a host region. Airport officials at Tampa International are planning for upward of 78,000 travelers on each of Sunday and Monday.
The head of Visit St. Pete-Clearwater noted that the home games fall on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, typically softer days for bookings during a shoulder season, which makes the extra traffic especially valuable for local hotels.
Vacation rental operators describe a similar lift. September and October usually rank among their slowest months, with most business arriving between January and late spring. One rental company owner said the bookings are also creating work for cleaners, handymen and charter operators, after two hard years of recovery from the 2024 hurricanes that kept many visitors away from the beaches.
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