Hotels
Vacation rentals
Airlines
Destinations
Travel agencies
Cruises
Car rentals
Financial institutions
Activities
Boost bookings, fill gaps, and maximize revenue with powerful vacation rental promotion strategies. Get started today.
BLOG POST
Sports tourism stays hot
How hoteliers and vacation rental hosts can capture the surge around this year's College Football Playoff National Championship.
If sports tourism has any lingering skeptics, this year’s College Football Playoff National Championship should put that debate to rest.
Indiana University and the University of Miami, the teams facing off in the championship game in South Florida, both have fans playing a waiting game in the hopes to see their favorite team in action.
Ticket prices for the game are running $3,000 or higher, prompting many to delay final travel decisions as they hold out for last-minute price drops. But other Hoosier and Hurricane fans plan to travel to the region even without game tickets.
The result is a spike in last-minute hotel and vacation-rental demand. For lodging operators this means a real opportunity to lean into Expedia Group’s promotional tools to capture share from the compset.
A rare moment for South Florida and for college football
Though South Florida is no stranger to major sporting events or the fans who travel to them, the football championship on Monday night is one that even seasoned operators should pay attention to.
The Hurricanes will play the Hoosiers at Hard Rock Stadium, a venue Miami calls home. In the modern College Football Playoff era, no team has ever played a national championship game in its home stadium. As Miami has more than two hundred thousand alumni from around the world, the game will be transformed into a once-in-a-generation homecoming.
Indiana’s story adds fuel to the fire. A program long defined by perseverance rather than postseason glory has become college football’s rags-to-roses story, and the Hoosiers’ run has activated what Indiana proudly calls the world's largest living alumni base. In recent games, IU fans turned Pasadena and Atlanta crimson, filling hotels and short-term rentals along the way. Miami is next.
Travel behavior is shifting, and partners should notice
Airlines have already responded. Delta, American, and Frontier have added service from Indianapolis to Miami. Flights from Chicago, home to a sizable Indiana alumni population, remain relatively affordable. Capacity is not necessarily the constraint. Timing is.
As airfare locks in, lodging decisions increasingly come later. Fans are staying flexible, willing to commute from nearby markets to offset ticket costs and stretch a championship weekend into a broader vacation. Delray Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and other coastal communities are seeing heightened interest from travelers combining family trips with once-in-a-lifetime sporting events.
One IndyCar Motorsports driver I spoke with shared plans to stay fifty minutes north, in Delray Beach, for precisely that reason: a beach vacation paired with a national championship. A group of Indiana alumni from Chicago and Austin booked flights weeks ago and told me they are monitoring hotel prices daily, waiting for last-minute opportunities.
Partner playbook: tools to capture championship demand
For hoteliers and vacation rental hosts
- Last minute deals to attract fans staying outside the immediate stadium area
- Member only pricing to convert high intent travelers when incremental occupancy matters
- One Key redemptions, fully funded by Expedia Group, to close bookings from value focused guests
For hoteliers
- B2B rate plans that surface inventory to travelers booking through financial institutions and loyalty platforms, an often overlooked but meaningful source of demand during major events
All tools are available via self-service and designed to perform when plans come together at the last minute.
The bigger picture
For partners, this championship is more than a busy weekend. It is a signal.
Sports tourism is not a blip. It is a durable demand driver powered by emotion, loyalty, and moments that cannot be replicated. When fans travel for history, they do not just book rooms. They create memories, and they remember who made the trip possible.
Congratulations to the partners capturing this demand. And as for Indiana football, let’s say sports tourism may be here to stay — much like Coach Cignetti’s Hoosiers. Sorry. Could not resist. Hoo, Hoo, Hoosiers.
Keep up to date
Sign up to let us know you'd like to be notified of future blog content.
Brandon Ehrhardt
Vice President of Marketing, Expedia Group
Brandon heads up B2B lodging marketing at Expedia Group and has played an integral role in scaling our partner programs, leading strategic initiatives, and expanding the use of revenue insights to drive partner success. Brandon resides with his wife and child, a young travel enthusiast, in Chicago, IL.
Was this page helpful?
Tell us how we did so we can improve our site.
