17,000 hotel rooms expected to be filled in Savannah by St. Patrick’s Day

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Savannah’s St. Patrick’s Day draws visitors from across the country causing local hotels to fill up fast.

And with this year’s celebrations happening on a Friday the CEO of Savannah’s Tourism Leadership Council expects more rooms to be filled.

“It’s fairly common that we get really close to sellout when it’s on a Friday, little lighter occupancy when it’s on the weekdays. I think everybody believes that we always sell out for St. Patrick’s Day. That hasn’t been the case for many, many years,” Michael Owens said.

But it’ll be close.

According to data from the council, Chatham County’s 17,000 hotel rooms are expected to be 99 percent full by Friday and Saturday.

That’s just over 31,000 overnight visitors.

Owens expects other visitors to stay outside of the city.

“When we see our occupancies increase in Savannah, the rates go up with that so we see those more cost sensitive go out to Pooler, Richmond Hill and Tybee Island. So, our success is everybody else’s success too,” Owens said.

City leaders say the crowds have already arrived with the bulk of revelers expected to come on Thursday.

“I think it’s very difficult to get a hotel room within 45 miles of Savannah,” Savannah Mayor Van Johnson says.

And if you are staying in the Hostess City hotels like the Hyatt Regency say they’ve been planning for St. Patrick’s Day since the fall.

“For this weekend, it’s all hands on deck. Everybody’s working, even the folks who are typically Monday-Friday. So we probably got about 30-40 extra folks than we normally would,” Todd Costin said.

wens believes many of the St. Patrick’s Day visitors to leave on Sunday.

But he doesn’t expect too big of a slowdown in numbers with this time of year being the city’s peak tourism season.

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