New Hilton wraps its arms around Cleveland's character HILTON from K1

The new 600-room Hilton Cleveland Downtown will be filled this weekend with Toronto Blue Jays fans -- and so will every other hotel in town. (Thomas Ondrey, The Plain Dealer)

(Thomas Ondrey)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Toronto fans moved fast.

Just after the third out in the bottom of the ninth at Boston's Fenway Park on Monday night, hotel reservations started pouring into Northeast Ohio. By Tuesday morning, Blue Jays fans had snatched up nearly every available hotel room in downtown Cleveland for the start of the American League Championship Series this Friday.

"These playoff games are amazing for what they do for Cleveland," said Bob Megazzini, general manager at the Westin Cleveland Downtown.

Laurel Keller, vice president at Cleveland's Hotel & Leisure Advisors, took a quick survey of downtown hotel occupancy early Tuesday. What she and a colleague found: Nearly every hotel in the downtown area was booked solid.

Those few hotels that had some vacancies - the Renaissance, for example, had at least a handful of rooms available on Tuesday night -- were fetching prices far above average ($425 and up at the Renaissance).

According to Megazzini, sellout baseball games are more lucrative for hotels than sellout basketball -- in part because baseball stadiums hold many more fans than basketball arenas (36,000 at Progressive Field, for example, compared to 20,500 at The Q).

"We're lucky it's not a Browns weekend this weekend," said Megazzini.

Ronnie Collins, director of sales and marketing at the new 600-room Hilton Cleveland Downtown, said the hotel booked up just after Monday night's game ended.

"I was hanging on every pitch," said Collins, fully aware that reservations would take off as soon as the game was over. The Hilton, too, tried to stimulate demand in the Toronto market, quickly sending out emailed sales pitches to Hilton Honors members in that city.

"It's an easy trip for those Blue Jays fans," he said.

Toronto, about 300 miles from Cleveland, is an easy trip for Indians fans, too, who might be considering a Canadian getaway early next week to witness the third, fourth and (potentially) fifth games in the series.

A quick check of hotel availability in Toronto for early next week showed several properties near the Rogers Centre already sold out for Monday; numerous downtown hotels, however, still had availability (check seetorontonow.com for information).

In this best-of-seven series, games six and seven (if necessary) will be back in Cleveland, Friday and Saturday, Oct. 21 and 22.

Megazzini said the hotelier in him likes these series to go their full length. The fan in him, however, prefers quick Cleveland victories.

Boston Red Sox fans, he said, nearly filled up the Westin for a couple of nights last week. Many of those same fans likely would have returned to Cleveland this week if the series had gone to a fifth game instead of ending in a three-game Indians sweep.

"From a business standpoint, it would have been nice," said Megazzini. "But I don't know if my heart could have handled that."