state business
Prices at Trump hotels are plummeting
Rates have dropped significantly at all but one of President Trump's 13 hotels since he took office, The Telegraph reported Monday. The average price for a weekend at a Trump hotel dropped by 36 percent in the last year, with the most dramatic decrease occurring at the Trump Las Vegas, where rates fell 63 percent.
The Macleod House and Lodge in Scotland fared the best comparatively, as its prices only dropped 10 percent. The lone Trump hotel to increase its price was the Trump Doonbeg in Ireland, whose rates inched up 7 percent.
But while prices have dropped at the president's properties, that does not necessarily mean that they are not making money. Prices at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., for example, dropped by a whopping 52 percent per The Telegraph's report. But in August, The Washington Post reported that the same hotel had already made nearly $2 million in the first four months of 2017 — despite the Trump Organization's prediction that it would lose more than $2 million in the first quarter.
The profitability of Trump's D.C. hotel could be an anomaly, given that foreign governments and their dignitaries may see an incentive in staying at the president's properties when doing business with or lobbying his administration. And even if prices are lower this year at Trump hotels, the president still has his beloved Mar-a-Lago property in Florida, which has doubled its membership prices this year.