Super Bowl host cities generally expect to see an influx of travelers leading up to the big game. Last year, visits to Houston increased 39 percent, and in 2016, Santa Clara, California, saw a 9 percent increase.

But this year, Minneapolis has seen an especially high surge — the number of visitors to the 2018 Super Bowl host city spiked 69 percent.

“While some of this gain is related to hosting the Super Bowl in a smaller metropolitan area this year compared to the recent past, I suspect some of the gain is a draw from the new U.S. Bank Stadium that has only been open since 2016,” said Chuck Thackston, ARC’s managing director of data science.

According to ARC data, the average number of visitors traveling to Minneapolis by air the week leading up to Super Bowl LII jumped 69 percent compared to the average visitor count for the same week over the past five years. This analysis includes tickets purchased through January 13, 2018.

Travelers visiting Minneapolis during this period paid an average ticket price of $488 — which is just slightly above the average ticket price of $473 as of December 2017.

To see more of ARC’s air travel data in action, visit our Airline Sales Statistics page.