Starting early last week, Mobile hotels, restaurants, and stores began welcoming an influx of visitors drawn by tonight's GMAC Bowl game and the festivities that go along with it.
The bowl itself is a $2.5 million business this year, its budget more than double what the city spent to stage the first Mobile Alabama Bowl in 1999.
According to the Mobile Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau, bowl participants and their fans spend an estimated $12.79 million on lodging, dining and various retail purchases.
Leon Maisel, the bureau's president, called that estimate a "very conservative" figure. "It doesn't include the (Mardi Gras-styled) parade, which is 23 floats and maybe 10,12 people to a float paying several hundred dollars for throws," he said. "This doesn't include the mayor's dinner, the breakfast, and a host of other hospitality events."
Game week includes about 10 such events.
That economic impact figure also doesn't include the GMAC Bowl-related events held at other times during the year, including a golf tournament that attracts about 250 out-of-towners to the city in May, said Jerry Silverstein, GMAC Bowl president.
Economic ripples from the game, this year pitting the University of Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles against the Ohio University Bobcats, can be far-reaching.
For example, the parade also promotes Mobile's Mardi Gras.
"From what I understand when the University of Toledo was down here (last season), they enjoyed the parade so much that a bunch of fans and
students booked hotel rooms to come back for Mardi Gras," Maisel said.
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