Some hotels are even more expensive because the wealthiest Americans spend lavishly on them.
His clients are now traveling to Europe, the Caribbean, and Miami, and his inquiries have risen by 15%. According to Satkowiak of the Luxury Travel Agency, Nashville, a typical hotel stay now costs between $1,500 and $2,500 per night. This is up from $900 before the pandemic.
Sometimes when I quote someone, I think, “Oh my god, $3,500 per night? “They’re never going take it,” he said. But they are not intimidated. They will just say, “Oh yeah, it’s okay.”
The wealthiest Americans continue to spend lavishly on luxurious stays, despite the fact that many Americans are cutting back on their hotel spending. In fact, this sector has seen some of the biggest declines in the last decade. The wealthy are taking advantage of the rise in home and stock values and spending on high-end hotel stays as part of their elaborate vacations.
This pattern is repeated across the entire economy. Sales of million-dollar houses are strong, despite the housing market’s stagnation. While lower-income buyers of cars have been excluded from the market, wealthy car owners are still buying.
The hotels are a good example of how the wealthy drive the economy. High-end hotels have a great year, even though much of the hotel industry is suffering from fewer bookings. According to CoStar (a commercial real estate data company), the Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, and St. Regis have all posted higher revenues this year. This is compared to a drop of 3.1 percent.
Jan Freitag, CoStar’s national director of hospitality analysis, said that the upper end was doing well, but not the lower. The industry is lurching along on an uneven footing. “But the high-end traveler still travels.”
This is in stark contrast to the rest, which is suffering from a diminished demand by cash-strapped Americans, coinciding with an abrupt drop in international visitors, especially Canadians, as a reaction to Trump’s “America First” rhetoric and immigration enforcement.
According to CoStar data, hotel revenue has been declining for two consecutive quarters. This is a level that was usually reached only during the Great Recession, the Coronavirus Pandemic, and 9/11.
CoStar data show that, in response to a weaker demand for rooms, the average rate has grown more slowly than inflation for eight months running.
According to CoStar, the average nightly price at a U.S. Hotel was $159 per night in August, essentially unchanged from the previous year. This figure is higher than the average hotel rate because luxury brands have increased their prices.
Freitag stated that the overall hotel industry was not doing well. “Foreign tourism is down. Group bookings are slowing, and low- and middle-income travellers are suffering.” They don’t have enough money, and travel and vacations are clearly discretionary.
International travelers have been avoiding the United States in response to Trump’s hardline stance regarding immigration, trade, and other global policies. According to Tourism Economics, overseas travel to the United States will drop by over 8 percent in 2018. This will result in $8.3 Billion in lost spending. Canadians, the largest source of foreign tourists, have reduced their visits by 25 percent.
The Viceroy Hotel and Hotel Zena are both popular downtown D.C. destinations for business travelers. Bookings have dropped by double digits compared to last year as conference goers, government workers, and international tourists rethink plans. Oksana Gyulnazaryan, the general manager of the area, said that wedding bookings had all but stopped.
She said, “It hasn’t been so bad since Covid.” “People are scared. “We don’t even know what is going to happen. Everything is on alert.”
Jeremy Boutin lives north of Boston and has stopped spending on vacations, restaurants, and entertainment since he lost a software engineering job last December. Boutin was unemployed for months before he finally landed a minimum-wage part-time job as a delivery driver. His wife is a librarian.
Boutin, 37, said that all the money he had was going to pay his bills. We’ve been on vacation before — I even proposed to my wife while in Italy — will we return? We’re not going to be able to make it there anytime soon.
