The Houston hotel industry will see overall performance growth of between 150 and 350 per cent during Super Bowl 51 weekend, according to a projection by STR’s consulting and analytics division.

“The most difficult aspect in projecting Houston’s Super Bowl performance is the current state of that market,” said Claudia Alvarado, STR analytics manager.

“Lower demand caused by the oil crisis and rapid supply growth combined for a 9.1 per cent decrease in occupancy for 2016 - the worst among US top 25 markets.

“Thus, there are two schools of thought on how performance may fare around the game at NRG Stadium.

“While it is possible for the soft performance to extend to the Super Bowl, we expect a sharp spike in occupancy and room prices.”

For the purposes of its projection, STR noted that each of the last nine Super Bowl host markets experienced year-over-year revenue-per-available-room growth of more than 100 per cent, including Houston in 2004 (up 384 per cent).

At the same time, the larger the host market, the lower the overall RevPAR gain, such as New York City in 2014 (up 115 per cent).

The largest year-over-year jump in RevPAR during the past nine Super Bowl weekends came in the smallest of the host markets, Indianapolis in 2012 (up 1,082 per cent).

During its previous Super Bowl host year in 2004, Houston saw RevPAR gains of 358.3 per cent on Friday, 385.1 per cent on Saturday and 411.1 per cent on Sunday.

Among major events in 2015, the Super Bowl in Phoenix produced the largest year-over-year RevPAR increase (up 197.1 per cent) in the three submarkets closest to the event.

Next in line using the same submarket calculation was the NCAA Men’s Final Four (up 101.2 per cent) in Indianapolis, the College Football Playoff National Championship in Dallas (up 80 per cent) and Wrestlemania 31 (up 62.8 per cent) in San Francisco.

“There is no question that major sporting events are a huge boon for host hotel markets, and the Super Bowl reigns supreme on the list,” Alvarado said.

Actual hotel performance data for Super Bowl 51 will be available late during the week of February 6th.