The Council Bluffs CVB recently engaged SportStays, a metro area firm, to work with Council Bluffs hoteliers and tournaments to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and the experience in booking hotel rooms for sporting events.
As CBCVB partners know, tournaments draw visitors to Council Bluffs and, in turn, generate hotel room nights. Visitor expenditures on overnight stays, restaurants, and retail shopping are the reason that the Council Bluffs CVB works so hard to win the right to host sporting events. If visitors stay in CB, the community can maximize travel spending here instead of losing it to Omaha.
SportStays is a company focused on setting up hotel room blocks to better capture those stays for the benefit of the host community, local hotels, and the tournament. It does so by creating an online portal, making it possible for tournament athletes, teams, and spectators to reserve hotel rooms quickly and easily. Tournament host hotels are listed showing their available guest rooms (or sold out if that is the case) and rates based on room type (i.e., number of beds, amenities, etc.). Portal users can see how many rooms can be reserved at each property and decide which suits their needs best.
Moreover, tournaments often depend on revenue beyond the competition’s registration fees to cover expenses. One frequently used revenue stream is imposing a rebate on each hotel room night the tournament generates. The rebate can be $5, $10, or more per night added to the hotel rate.
This all sounds pretty straightforward if each party (sporting events, hotels, and tournament participants) does their part, and if they did, SportStays wouldn’t have a reason to exist. But the parties rarely do, and that’s where SportStays comes into the picture as a service provider and facilitator. As stated earlier, the portal offers an efficient method to identify lodging options. As portal users book their stays, SportStays collects the rebate upfront and acts as a deposit on each room night. This process eliminates the need for hotels to collect the rebate and removes the need to track those reservations in their system separately. Once the event concludes, SportStays can issue payment on the rebates collected generally within 30 days, which allows tournaments to wrap up their financials in a reasonable timeframe.
Not to mention, SportStays plays a role in facilitating communication between the tournaments and hoteliers. It spurs the tournament organizers to regularly, clearly, and consistently inform the athletes, teams, and spectators that booking host hotels through the portal is not just convenient, it is required. SportStays also reminds the lodging properties how critical it is for the event’s success to funnel all room reservations through the portal and not accept bookings outside the block. While the latter might increase short-term hotel revenue, it could lead to the tournament relocating to another city or closing altogether.
SportStays has started working with both CB hotels and tournaments (taking place in late 2025 and into 2026). For more information, Contact Erin Kloke of SportStays at 402.880.7616 or [email protected].
