re: Slive's love affair with Atlanta

I'm willing to bet the gouging isn't as bad as it may seem. Room counts are just as important as anything else. In a city like Nashville, rates will likely go up. There's 37,000 or so rooms in Nashville, and if the SEC Tournament brings more than 37,000 people needing rooms, the rates will have to go up. Someone coming to Nashville for the basketball tournament likely won't return for a vacation, and if they do...they'll think they got a deal on the room compared to their first trip for the tournament. If they'd been to Nashville before and paid less they may feel a bit gouged, but if they didn't like the prices they wouldn't come for the tournament. Keep in mind, the tournament won't likely be the only thing going on in town that week, and the natural occupancy will also create a supply/demand issue.

Atlanta has (by the most recent number I could find) about 80,000 rooms. Assuming it's a slow week in Atlanta, I can't really see much in the way of "gouging" due to the SEC Tournament.

New Orleans has about 50,000 hotel rooms and a sizable natural demand without the tournament, so some price increases are likely.

The fact of the matter is that in order to keep travel prices low and room rates relatively flat Atlanta is the best option in the SEC footprint due to Hartsfield and the room inventory in the city.

Short of that, you'd have to do what four other conferences have done and come to a place outside the footprint like here in Las Vegas where flights are cheap and there are 150,000 rooms, but then everyone's flying across two time zones to come to the SEC tournament in the southwest.

Then again, LV has a huge room inventory and a means of gaining revenue outside of room and food/bev sales.

ETA: "Raping the tourists" isn't anything but supply and demand. The need for 50,000 rooms in a city with 37,000 rooms available is going to cause rates to go up no matter what, any hotel that doesn't raise their rates in that situation deserves to go out of business. Just like room rates go up in the Caribbean during spring break for the kids or in the summer when families go on vacation.

Cities want to increase occupancy to maximize room tax revenue, hotels just want to increase revenue.