Make way! Thousands of visitors expected to stay, spend this weekend
| Tuesday, Mar 02 2010 06:23 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, Mar 02 2010 06:31 PM
GETTING TICKETS
52nd annual March Meet drag race
March 5-7 at Auto Club Famoso Raceway
Super 3-Day Passes can be purchased for $75 online at autoclubfamosoraceway.com
Day tickets are available at the track. Prices range from $25 to $30.
37th CIF State Wrestling Championships
March 5-6 at Rabobank Arena
Tickets are available through Ticketmaster or at the arena box office.
AYSO Soccer Section 10 All Star games
March 6-7 at Kern County Soccer Park
No charge for watching soccer, but there is a $10 parking fee.
Images
Seth Hicks of Centennial, top, and Corey Johnson, of Del Oro, had a good match, Friday, at Rabobank Arena during the 2009 CIF state wrestling championships. Hicks of Centennial won the match.
Drag racers at March Meet 2008 line up for their qualifying runs at Auto Club Famoso Raceway.
This weekend is going to be big for local hotels. As in, big the way Christmas is for retailers. Big the way Halloween is for candymakers.
In other words, if you need a hotel room this weekend, and you haven't booked it yet, good luck finding a place near Bakersfield.
On Tuesday a guy e-mailed the organizer of one of three big events coming to town this weekend. He'd tried to find his family a room and couldn't, so he's bringing the motor home, organizer Donna Nelson said.
"It's wild and crazy," said Nelson, whose AYSO all-star soccer tournament at the Kern County Soccer Park is expected to attract 96 teams.
Her event alone is expected to bring in about 10,000 people. And that's not counting the 17,000 planning to attend the state high school wrestling championship at Rabobank Arena, or the 30,000 or so spectators heading to the March Meet drag race at Auto Club Famoso Raceway.
This is all wonderful news not just for hotels but restaurants and gas stations -- any business that caters to out-of-towners. Official estimates put the drag race's economic impact at more than $3 million, and the wrestling tournament at more than $1 million.
Funny thing is, it's all a coincidence. Only October gives this weekend any competition in terms of big local gatherings happening at the same time, Bakersfield hospitality executive Don Cohen said.
He's not complaining.
"We are so thrilled. I mean, this is what we live for," said Cohen, manager of the Bakersfield Convention & Visitors Bureau. "So we are in our glory on a week like this."
The general manager of the Bakersfield Marriott at the Convention Center, Carlos Navarro, expects to be full up this weekend. Over at the Courtyard by Marriott, general manager Jenny Gatlin said anyone without a reservation will have to look for somewhere to stay near the bottom of the Grapevine, in Buttonwillow or even Visalia.
Nobody on her staff better ask for the day off.
"We're gonna need all hands on deck for a weekend like this," Gatlin said.
Bakersfield hotels can certainly use the business. Data provided by Smith Travel Research show that hotels in the city took in $117.3 million last year, about 10 percent less than they did in 2008.
Over the same period, average hotel occupancy rates in Bakersfield slipped from about 58 percent to about 53 percent, Smith Travel Research reported.
There's a slight downside: Locals might want to brace themselves. County tourism leader Rick Davis said wives and children of some drag racing enthusiasts tend to take a break at some points to stretch their legs at local museums and such.
"All of our attractions will get some increased activity," said Davis, executive director of Kern's Board of Trade, the county tourism agency.
Not a problem. Nelson, at AYSO, said part of the reason Bakersfield hosts the annual tournament is because locals know how to behave themselves.
"We are considered to be very hospitable as a city," she said, "not only as a soccer destination."
