E-MAIL CHRIS   PRINT   2008 COLUMNS   ARCHIVES   SEARCH ARCHIVES A DARK, STORMY AND COSTLY HOTEL NIGHT By Chris Barnett January 24, 2008 -- It was a dark and stormy Tuesday night and the Hilton in San Francisco's Financial District was packed with business travelers. There was just one room left, a single-bed lodging for $349 a night. No midweek specials in the slow month of January? The front desk clerk hadn't seen one for months. He also couldn't quote the price for a king-size room at this hotel that previously flew a Crowne Plaza flag. He couldn't quote because prices zigzag with demand--and there's plenty of demand in the City by the Bay. In fact, the hotel is virtually sold out next month. The not-so-subtle lesson of this dark and stormy Tuesday: Be prepared to dig deep this year for a hotel room in a major city. And don't expect your corporate rates or frequent travel program status to mean much. Why the crunch when it is clear that domestic travel is slowing down? The euro, British pound, the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand dollars and many other world currencies have trumped the dollar. Foreign businesspeople and vacationers are on American shopping sprees, buying everything from Bally shoes, Coach bags and iPods to high-flying growth companies. America is a bargain to much of the world and that means hotels are free to raise their rates to cater to the free-spending international visitors. And the pundit patter predicting an imminent U.S. recession has only whetted the appetites of the international jet set. They want to fly in and get their share. Of course, there's no iron-clad rule that says a big-city hotel room automatically comes with a sky-scraping rate. I recently checked out The Benjamin in midtown Manhattan. It's diagonally across Lexington Avenue from the Waldorf=Astoria and it was offering a room with a galley kitchen for $329 a night this month. For an extra $40 a night, the hotel is selling an upgrade to a larger room with a king-sized bed, also with a galley kitchen. The Benjamin calls itself an "executive suite" hotel and, stylish as it is, it isn't a trendy Manhattan bunkhouse, where rates run $700, $800 or even $1,000 a night. But when you consider that the rate for a small suite on a Thursday in New York City is being matched by the lowest-priced room in San Francisco's financial district, you know there are deals somewhere, even if it's a costly New York accommodation. This rate madness is not a Left Coast/Right Coast thing, either. Nationwide, all hotels with more than 20 rooms have hiked their room costs an average of 6 percent through November, 2007, says Jan Freitag, vice president of Smith Travel Research, which benchmarks rates for the hospitality industry. New York hotel prices jumped 11 percent last year and the fancier hotels were "leading the charge," Freitag explains. Boston, which has become a very hot hotel town in the last 24 months, even defied the venerable law of supply and demand. Room rates jumped an average of 7 percent in spite of the fact that a slew of new hotels have opened there. The most fascinating? Boston's Liberty Hotel, a luxury inn that housed felons when it was the all-stone Charles Street Jail. Of course, that was before the 156-year-old building underwent a five-year, $150 million makeover. Where occupants once wanted to break out of this joint at the foot of Beacon Hill, travelers and celebrities like Mick Jagger, Annette Benning and Meg Ryan, among others, are trying to get in. And they're paying $339 a night for the privilege. Not exactly as historic or quirky as the Liberty Hotel is the towering Atlanta Marriott Marquis. It's got 1,600 rooms and a subway station in the lobby, which means it's just 15 minutes from Hartsfield International Airport. In traffic-choked Atlanta, that's a nice perk. But, otherwise, the place is a rather pedestrian convention hotel. Yet even with some serious horse-trading, the best rate I could wangle for a Thursday night was $299. Plus, you still have to pony up $13 a night for the high-speed Internet access.

ABOUT CHRIS BARNETT Chris Barnett writes about business-travel tactics and strategies that save time and money and help minimize hassles. He is based in San Francisco and has written for a wide variety of major newspapers and national magazines. Barnett on Business Travel is syndicated by Copley News Service. THE FINE PRINT Joe Brancatelli makes this space available to Chris Barnett in the spirit of free speech and to help encourage editorial diversity and the wider discussion of important travel issues. All of the opinions and material in this column are the sole property of Barnett. This material may not be reproduced in any form without the express permission of Chris Barnett. A NOTE TO EDITORS Barnett on Business Travel is available biweekly through Copley News Service. Contact: Glenda Winders. This column is Copyright © 2008 by Chris Barnett. JoeSentMe is Copyright © 2008 by Joe Brancatelli. All rights reserved.