Will 4th of July Weekend be a Bust for Hotels?

The question from Kelley perked up my attention. “What if the  4^th of July holiday turns out to be a total bust for hotels?”

I talk to her about hotel travel frequently – more than she wants to hear. And Kelley was throwing a conversation starter at me yesterday as we drove to Santa Clara, California – 80 miles from Monterey – for the 21^st weekday in a row to the Cancer Treatment Center of Kaiser Hospital. The best part of three hours a day driving together in the car is the opportunity to talk our heads off.

This is the year without a summer vacation for us and it seems like many others are going through similar travel droughts, although likely for other reasons.

We spend significant hours on the freeways. From our house we drive downhill to Highway 1 for 20 miles around Monterey Bay to Highway 156 (5 miles) to Highway 101 for 40 miles, to Highway 85 along the south end of San Jose (3 miles) to Highway 87 (5 miles) into downtown San Jose, then head west on Interstate 280 for 5 miles, and we are in Santa Clara and the Kaiser hospital.

My primary point about our extensive daily freeway travel is we just are not seeing travelers in cars loaded with suitcases and gear for a summer trip. Normally these roads are packed with RVs, trucks with boat trailers, and cars with loaded bike racks.

Where are the travelers this summer?

And Kelley asked, “What if the 4^th of July holiday is a bust for hotels?”

San Francisco Hotel Rates slashed to new lows 48 hours before the 4^th of July weekend

Last night I checked hotel rates for the San Francisco Bay Area and the rates dropped significantly on Wednesday, July 1 from the rates I surveyed 24 hours earlier on Tuesday, June 30.

Rate changes are not that unusual, however, I have followed the hotel rates in San Francisco since late April when Starwood and InterContinental Hotels Group announced their free hotel night promotions. Several hotels in San Francisco dropped rates yesterday to the lowest rates I’ve seen since beginning my data collection for the July 4 weekend on April 30.

I predict this is going to be a bad 4^th of July holiday season for hotels in the USA.

San Francisco Starwood Hotel Rates Comparative Observations

I filed a couple of Best Rate Guarantee claims for Le Meridien San Francisco based on discrepancies I saw yesterday. $103.35 is quite the deal for the Le Meridien Hotel.

San Francisco Hotel Bargains for July 4 weekend

How do hotel rates look this July 4^th for your area?

 July 9 update: Smith Travel Research numbers for the week of July 4 were posted today. The occupancy decline across US hotels was about 6% for the week. Friday, July 3 showed an 8.2% decline in occupancy and 9.4% decline in average daily rate when compared to 2008 data. Saturday, July 4 showed a 4.3% decline in occupancy and a 5.3% decline in average room rate.

I call that a busted holiday weekend.

San Diego was one of the top hotel destinations in the country with a greater than 5% increase in occupancy over last year. I guess those high rates in San Diego last week were really due to a lot of hotel guests, although the occupancy average still came in at just 74.9% for the week.

New York still looks like the rate bargain destination compared to the prevailing rates over the past few years.

Source: http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/articles.aspx?ArticleId=1499