JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Planning and preparations are underway as thousands of Jaguars and Chargers fan plan on attending Saturday’s AFC wild-card game in Jacksonville.
The visitor’s bureau believes that businesses will be packed and that hotels will be sold out.
From the moment the Jaguars became AFC South champions with a 20-16 home win this past weekend over the Tennessee Titans, tickets for this weekend’s game and hotels in the city have been booking up quickly.
According to travel search engines, flights from Los Angeles to Jacksonville are starting at $460, and flights returning to L.A. are starting at $460, as well.
Online tickets to the game are being sold for double to quadruple the price of the original game day tickets.
There’s still the availability of local hotels, but the price range varies from $70 to over $230 a night the closer you are to the stadium.
For last weekend’s game, local hotels were booked, and it’s anticipated those hotels will be booked again over the next couple of days.
Andrea Mestdagh, with Visit Jacksonville, says the team is looking forward to visitors seeing the Bold City.
“We are ready to welcome you with open arms. We are excited to have visitors come in and excited to have people see Jacksonville and showcase the city during this great event,” Mestdagh said. “We are excited. I mean, just in general to have the Jags doing this well, it’s been a while since we’ve had a playoff game, so we are very excited for that, and to be able to have it as a home game, it’s just a bonus.”
Boaters can get in on the fun this week, too. The city of Jacksonville has offered 78 slips in Metropolitan Park Marina for boats and large yachts. The city made registration for the slips available Monday morning, but later in the day, they were already sold out.
Tourism will generate money. When you add up all of the expenses for the weekend, one visitor can easily spend $2,200 to $2,800 for this Friday and Saturday.