Hotels booked, prices rise as visitors swarm into town

Looking for a hotel room this Homecoming Weekend?\nGood luck. Bloomington's hotels are booked solid.\nThe 117 rooms at the Courtyard by Marriott are all reserved. The Indiana Memorial Union's 186 rooms have been taken since July. At the Econo Lodge on North Walnut Avenue, however, two rooms miraculously opened up Tuesday afternoon because of cancelations.\nThe Bloomington Visitor's Bureau is receiving hundreds of phone calls from people hunting for hotel rooms. Laura Newton, director of sales, said the bureau is still trying to help as many people as it can. By Friday, she expects the few hotel rooms left in the city to be gone. \n"People are still calling trying to find rooms," Newton said. "Every phone call, they seem desperate, like it's the end of the world."\nAt the Courtyard by Marriott, General Manager Frank Rowe has been turning customers away for months. On Tuesday, a pleading visitor tried to bribe his way into a room with a $100 bill. He was turned away.\n"I wish I had a wait list," Rowe said. "If I had 50 more rooms, I could fill them all."\nWith so many people visiting for Homecoming, hotels are pushing their rates way up. \nNewton said the No. 1 complaint the visitor's bureau hears concerns the high prices for lodging.\nLuke Musselman, general manager of the University Plaza Hotels, said the hotel increases its rates by about $50 during Homecoming weekend. They also increase during graduation.\nThe Courtyard by Marriott raises its rates by $60 every home football weekend. \n"There is a strong demand for these football weekends," Rowe said. "Higher demand creates higher rates."\nMia Galloway at the Econo Lodge declined to specify how much rates increase there, but she did say they are "definitely pricier."\n"These are the biggest weekends, and rooms are sure to get rented because we are so close to the stadium," she said. "It's one of our money-making weekends."\nThe IMU does not raise its prices. IU policy forbids it. Rooms at the Union run from $96 to $259 a night.\nNewton said hotels in every city raise their rates when there are big events.\n"It really is supply and demand, and people get caught off guard," Newton said. "These are some of the things we have to teach the public." \nThe IU Memorial Stadium seats 53,000 fans. Bloomington only has 2,000 hotel rooms, Newton said.\nFor a last-minute place to stay, procrastinators might want to try the Quality Inn off Indiana 45/46. General Manager Michael Cahill said the hotel is only 38 percent full. \n"We usually look for 100 percent occupancy, and we are at 38 percent, which is terrible," Cahill said.\n-- Contact senior writer Adam VanOsdol at avanosdo@indiana.edu.