Who Wins When Cities Run? The Uneven Impact of Marathons on Hotel Demand

This paper quantifies the causal impact of large-scale urban marathons on hotel demand and pricing using a novel combination of interactive fixed-effects counterfactual (IFEct) estimation and regression discontinuity (RD) design. Drawing on detailed panel data of hotel performance, we find that marathons induce a sharp but short-lived increase in rooms sold-approximately 9% relative to non-event days-while the corresponding increase in average daily rate (ADR) is modest. These effects are consistent across both model specifications and are highly localized in time. A moderation analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity: urban and development-zone hotels experience significant demand gains, while convention-oriented properties suffer occupancy losses. Similarly, budget and premium-tier brands benefit most, whereas luxury hotels exhibit more muted responses. These findings suggest that hotels adjust primarily through quantity rather than price, and that responsiveness varies meaningfully by location and market positioning. The study contributes to the literature on event-driven demand shocks, pricing strategy, and hospitality economics, and offers a generalizable framework for evaluating the market-level impact of spatially concentrated, temporally bounded urban events.