'It’s very, very exciting!' April’s NFL Draft in Detroit already filling hotels in Windsor

The economic benefits from the upcoming NFL Draft in downtown Detroit in April are already spilling across the Detroit River into downtown Windsor.

The CEO of Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island (TWEPI), Gordon Orr says four of Windsor’s seven major downtown hotels are already sold out, noting that 6000 rooms in Detroit have also already been booked.

“It's a little more than a month to go and the momentum is gaining,” Orr exclaimed. “It's growing and it's very, very exciting.”

Orr said, “We've been tracking our hotel occupancy for the last few weeks and we've noticed that as of March 11, we have four of our major hotels in downtown Windsor sold out for the Thursday. Friday, they're sitting at about 85 per cent occupancy, and I'm sure that's higher as we speak.”

Orr said the draft is the second biggest event the NFL puts on next to Super Bowl, with hundreds of thousands of people expected to descend on Detroit between April 25-27

“There's no doubt about it that the Windsor downtown hotels will be full. We also know that that'll pressurize our other hotels in the region,” Orr explained.NFL Draft (Source: Visit Detroit)

He continued, “What's good for Detroit is good for Windsor and vice versa and we know that there are a lot of sports fans out there that want to celebrate with the Detroit Lions for those playoff games. We know there are a lot of NFL fans that want to be part of this NFL Draft.”

The draft will take place in downtown Detroit with the stage near Cadillac Square and Campus Martius Park, while the celebrations will stretch all the way to Hart Plaza where the NFL Fan Experience will be located.

“We're very, very lucky to be sitting right next on the border of a major metropolitan city in the US and Detroit is really in a renaissance sort of period. They have been for a number of years and we've been able to capitalize on some of those opportunities.”

According to Orr, there were over 4.4 million visitors to Windsor-Essex in 2022, contributing $669-million in direct spending, and helping to employ approximately 10,000 people in the region's tourism industry.

Orr added, “We all know that the longer they are here, the more money they'll spend and the fact that we can capitalize on something that Detroit is bringing us is phenomenal and that's how we celebrate this two nation destination reciprocal sort of relationship and they're very excited about the fact that we can offer hotels to the Canadian fans that want to go over and see the draft.”

With files from AM800’s Rusty Thomson.