The Vols still remain winless in the SEC as LSU defeats them 30-10. Wochit
At least there were a few winners in Knoxville from last Saturday’s UT-LSU football game: Airbnb hosts.
The Vols lost to the Tigers 30-10 on Nov. 18, but Airbnb projects that to be its biggest weekend ever in East Tennessee, with 1,250 guests staying with local hosts, and those hosts making $136,000.
That tops the season’s previous high point, the Oct. 14 game against South Carolina, by about 80 people and $36,000, the company reported.
“In the past 12 months, we've seen the number of hosts in Knoxville grow 50 percent to about 400, so there's more people in Knoxville participating,” Airbnb spokesman Ben Breit said via email. “Also I think an increase in general awareness among visitors about Airbnb and the sharing economy.”
Nashville residents share their concerns about the growing Short-Term Rental debate in Nashville. George Walker IV / The Tennessean
On this year’s UT home football weekends so far, local Airbnb hosts had 5,820 guests and earned $533,000, according to a news release. The Vols’ 12-game season started Sept. 4 in Atlanta with the first home game Sept. 9. Seven of the 12 games are at Neyland Stadium, with one to go: Nov. 25 against Vanderbilt.
Based on the number of five-star reviews Airbnb guests left in cities with big universities, Knoxville recently ranked as the ninth most hospitable town Airbnb serves, Breit said.
During the 2016 season, local Airbnb hosts had 3,400 guests for home football weekends, bringing in $520,000 directly. That was one-fifth of the guests Airbnb clients in Knoxville had for the whole year.
But, Breit says, the extra lodging space made money for more than the hosts – by keeping more of those visitors in town, more of their dollars stayed in Knoxville for food and shopping.
More: Knoxville Council passes Airbnb ordinance, pauses Parkridge overlay
A UT Athletics-sponsored study found in May 2016 that Vols football had a $355.7 million annual economic impact, accounting for more than half the total impact of UT sports.
That’s $42 million for the average home-game weekend, research firm Tripp Umbach concluded. The hospitality industry got the biggest slice of that: Hotels see $73.9 million in annual effects from UT football, while restaurants and bars get $82.5 million, according to the study.
The Hilton Garden Inn Knoxville/University is less than a mile from Neyland Stadium, closer than any other hotel. The 112-room hotel sells out for every home game, and football fans make reservations for the following year’s game weekends as soon as they’re available, General Manager Marcedes Schindler said in August.
In the 2015-16 season, football games drew 621,561 fans, more than half the 1.17 million who attended all UT sporting events, according to Tripp Umbach’s study. Neyland Stadium’s capacity is 102,455. Seventy percent of those fans came from outside Knox County, and 25 percent traveled from outside Tennessee.