The average daily rate of hotel rooms in New York City jumped 8.5% from 2022 to 2023 and remained high through the first few months of 2024 during the conversion of roughly 135 hotels to housing illegals, The New York Times reported.
Not one hotel that entered the city's shelter program has returned to its traditional hotel business, the Times reported, making N.Y.C. hotels more expensive than ever. The cost of staying at the remaining 500-plus hotels is up 6.7% year-over-year at a time when hotel prices usually dip, according to the report. The average cost of a hotel room is now $230.79, up from $216.38 after Q1 of 2023.
Overall, the city is operating with 16,532 fewer hotel rooms for travelers and tourists as the city turned to the hospitality industry to house roughly 65,000 illegal migrants. The sanctuary hotel program guarantees hotels rates between $139 and $185 per night whether a room is occupied or not, according to the report. Those rates don't include food or other services, all part of the $10 billion that the city plans to spend over the next three fiscal years as a sanctuary city.
But at a great cost to tourists.
"During peak periods, try getting a hotel on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday night in midtown Manhattan, and, if you can, you could end up paying dearly," Daniel H. Lesser, a co-founder of LW Hospitality Advisors, told the Times. "It's all supply-and-demand related, and the migrant rooms have reduced the amount of supply."