Business & Tech
Hotels will be Slammed for Volvo Ocean Race Next Year
It will be the first year that the Volvo Ocean Race has had Newport as a Host Port.
More than 3,000 hotel rooms have already been booked in advance of the Volco Ocean Race, set to land in Newport in May of 2015.
Marlen Scalvi of the Hotel Viking said all of the hotel's 208 rooms are booked between May 14 to 17, coinciding with the race.
The folks at Discover Newport said the expectations for an economic infusion for the race have already exceeded expectations.
Evan Smith, the CEO of Discover Newport, told ABC6 that they believe virtually all of the hotel rooms in Newport and many throughout the entire state will be booked solid.
The incredible early response "is sending a strong signal to everyboy that something really good [is coming] in 2015," Smith said.
It will be the first year that the Volvo Ocean Race has had Newport as a Host Port.
"I'm delighted to announce that we are bringing the world's greatest offshore sailing event to one of the world's great sailing cities," Volvo Ocean Race CEO Knut Frostad. said at a presentation at Rhode Island State House in Providence in February.
The Race will start in Alicante, Spain and visit Recife in north east Brazil. Later in the Race, the teams will race to Auckland in New Zealand before rounding Cape Horn and making a second Brazilian stop in Itajaí and then heading to Newport.
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