Youth soccer tourney score for R.I. hotels

ON THE BALL: Doug Brady, general manager of the South Kingstown Holiday Inn, anticipates the U.S. Youth Soccer Region I Tournament to be a great success. Above, he speaks with hotel employee Elizabeth Ashley. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE
ON THE BALL: Doug Brady, general manager of the South Kingstown Holiday Inn, anticipates the U.S. Youth Soccer Region I Tournament to be a great success. Above, he speaks with hotel employee Elizabeth Ashley. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE

If the past is any indication, then the recently announced U.S. Youth Soccer Region 1 summer tournament at the University of Rhode Island in 2013 & 2014 should be a smashing success.
When the tournament was held at Lancaster, Penn., earlier this year, over 10,000 room nights were booked, raking in $15 million, according to Chris Branscome, CEO of Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer and co-chair of the Lancaster Organizing Committee.
The number of visitors was estimated at 15,000, with over 4,000 players participating in a total of 450 soccer matches and 260 teams competing over the course of five days. Families and tournament officials traveled from as far as Maine and West Virginia to play in the weeklong tournament.
Local hotels and inns like the sound of those numbers.
“Soccer tournaments have been held [at URI] for many years, so for us it’s like adding extra days, which is fantastic,” said Douglas Brady, general manager at Holiday Inn in South Kingstown. He said the tournament will also help jump-start the summer tourism season, resulting in either more hours for current employees or hiring more staff.
Brady, like many other South County business operators knows that these soccer tournaments are great for the economy. The annual South County Seaside Classic is hosted each year by the South County Youth Soccer Club and takes place at URI in mid-July. It is one of the largest soccer tournaments in the region with about 160 teams from New England, New York, New Jersey and Canada.
According to the tournament committee, 1,700 rooms are booked at area hotels, and a total of $900,000 in revenue goes to local businesses. The U.S. Youth Soccer tournament is much larger, and the games will coincide with the Fourth of July. Both tournaments will be played at URI in the summer of 2013, and most likely 2014 as well. The event will be here June 27-July 2, 2013 and June 26-July 1, 2014, a week or two before the Seaside Classic.
“Not only are there the rooms but they will be looking for things to do, what to eat and what to see,” Brady said. “They usually stay for about three days so the families like to make it a mini-vacation while they are here,” he said. “We send our laundry out so even something like that will see a big increase, and we will have to order more supplies as well. It’s a big trickle effect.” South County Tourism Council President & CEO Myrna George said attracting the new tournament was a major achievement and will certainly help the area’s stores and restaurants. Hotels, she said, are being booked across the region. “It’s a very big accomplishment,” she said. “The Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau deserve a lot of credit for helping to bring the tournament here,” she said. “The need for hotel rooms will spread visitors around Rhode Island. John Gibbons, executive director of the Rhode Island Sports Commission, also did a great job to help bring it here. It’s a major victory for the state.”
Gibbons has been behind the scenes of many unique sporting events, some with national significance.
“There will be 15 states represented in the [U.S. Youth Soccer tournament] with boys and girls in each age division,” he said. “We are planning for about 4,500 players but it could be as many as 5,000,” he said. “If each player brings two people that’s 15,000 people. We are planning to use about 3,500 – 4,000 hotel rooms per night or about 12,000 room-nights each year, and that is a conservative estimate.” Most of the contracts with hotels have already been signed, reserving a block of rooms for the entire week, including areas such as Narragansett and South Kingstown, and as far away as Coventry, Smithfield, Seekonk, Mass., Mystic, Conn., and Foxwoods. With such an influx of people, about 3,000 of the 12,000 bookings spilled into other states but are still in the region.
According to Gibbons, national soccer officials were looking for a new location for the tournament, having spent the last two years in Lancaster. Having had good experiences with the Ocean State in 2000 and 2004, it was a natural fit. He also said the competition will bring some added benefits. “The Seaside Classic is one of the larger soccer tournaments but it is organized in such a way that some teams play several games in one day. With the new tournament they only play one game each day. And with a game lasting two hours, players and their families have plenty of time to shop, sightsee or even hit the beach. It gives them a lot of time to enjoy what the state has to offer,” he said. “We think it’s going to be a huge economic bang for the state.”
“Everyone gets excited when the [NCAA] Division I Men’s Basketball Regionals comes to the state,” Gibbons said. “The event brings people in the state for a three- or four-day period. That event usually is worth about 4,000 hotel room nights, bringing in less people than the soccer tournament. The basketball tournament gets the attention of the nation but it is events like this that bring in the money.” He said he hopes to attract another basketball tournament.
On Oct. 6, the R.I. Convention Center Authority announced they acquired the East Regionals of the 2013 NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Championship to be played at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center on March 29-31. Brown University will serve as host. From experience, he estimates the three-day playoff will bring in an additional room nights into Providence and bring in about 10,000 spectators. Historically the hockey tournament brings in teams and spectators from New England as well as from across the country.
Another upcoming sporting event sure to attract visitors in the 2013 American Hockey League All-Star game to be held at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center on Jan. 28, 2013. The game will be a four-day affair, starting with a Providence Bruins home game on Jan. 25, followed by the Providence Bruins Youth Hockey Festival, the AHL All-Star skills competition and the AHL Hall of Fame induction, awards ceremony and All-Star Game. •

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