Hotel stays for eclipse underperform, Austin travel leaders say

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Local group Visit Austin said 78% of hotel rooms were booked through the April 8 solar eclipse, but that while successful, the turnout was not as great as initially anticipated.

Wesley Lucas with Visit Austin said the agency regularly tracks the occupancy of Austin's 50,000 hotel rooms.

She said the number of rooms booked for eclipse travel is roughly the same as other large localized events such as the Austin City Limits festival and South by Southwest. Lucas said they expected to see eclipse travel more on par with occupancy seen during Formula 1 weekend, with that occupancy hovering just a few points under 100% for several years.

She said the agency looked into why eclipse stays didn't reach their sell-out potential and chalks it up to different spending habits of the solar eclipse crowd.

"Eclipse travelers we learned in our research are typically more budget conscious when they're making a travel decision. So they're staying in campgrounds, or maybe select service hotel property, short term rentals, maybe a large group of folks are traveling together," Lucas said.

Lucas said Visit Austin will receive the results of a Smith Travel Research survey in the coming months which will share a comprehensive look at the financial impact of the solar eclipse.

Visitors were projected to have spent more than a billion dollars in Austin and the surrounding Hill Country during the April 8 solar eclipse, providing the state with one of its biggest economic boosts of the year.