‘The winner of both primaries is the economy’

Each year, hoteliers in Columbia eagerly await weekends in the fall, when tens of thousands of rabid football fans sell out hotels for University of South Carolina Gamecock football games.

But for David Erbacher, director of sales for the new Hyatt Place Columbia/Downtown, there’s no bigger game than the presidential primaries.

His 130 rooms have been sold out all this week and most of next. And he is getting top dollar — $299 a night for rooms that often sell for as little as $149, and up to $349 a night for a suite.

“It’s really having an impact, even more so than football weekends,” Erbacher said. “Those are just Friday and Saturday nights. This is for most of two weeks.”

And the impact is not just in Columbia. Greenville and Charleston are seeing similar sell-outs because the candidates and news outlets also have major presences there. Although it doesn’t have as much impact as the GOP behemoth, the two-candidate Democratic primary will extend some of the business through next weekend, Erbacher said.

“Everybody is very appreciative that we can host these primaries,” he said.

This year’s primaries will lead to an additional 230,000 room nights booked in the state compared to non-election years, according to statistics from the U.S. Travel Association. When multiplied by the state's average room rate, that's an extra $24.2 million in hotel revenue, it said.

“The winner of both primaries is the South Carolina economy,” said John Durst, president and chief executive of the South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association.

U.S. Travel economists ran a similar analysis for New Hampshire. Though a similar trend seems at play there — an estimated extra 78,400 room-nights and $8.9 million in hotel revenue during primary years — U.S. Travel found that the effect in South Carolina appears to be far greater.

Besides it being a larger state than New Hampshire, another reason for the swell in South Carolina is the state's bookend primaries.

The broader economic impact could also be considerable. Each visitor in town for the presidential season will spend an estimated $330 per day on average for transportation, hotel rooms, meals and other travel activities, the researchers found — or $2,310 per week.

“I wish we had a presidential campaign here every year,” Duane Parrish, head of the SC Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, said.

Parrish added that not only is there a direct impact from the primaries in terms of spending on travel and hospitality, but the state is also reaping the benefits of candidates spending in print shops, facility rentals and advertising. “It’s a windfall for a lot of industries besides tourism,” he said.

And the television and print coverage provides tons of free advertising, Durst said.

It’s a boost for the economy “not just for the expenditure by campaigns and the media that are staying with us but the international exposure we are getting,” he said.

Parrish noted that last week GOP candidate Donald Trump held a press conference on Kiawah Island. “People could see how beautiful it was,” he said.

This story was originally published February 19, 2016 at 6:38 PM with the headline "‘The winner of both primaries is the economy’."