Boston area hotels were weeping, wailing, and doing everything short of self-flagellation at all the business they were going to lose while the Democratic National Convention was in town. Well, now that the numbers are in, there should be happy faces all around. Seems like local hotel revenue got a 33 percent bump in July, with credit going both to the DNC and the first big shows in the new convention center, Mac World and SAP. Oh yeah, the rates are heading back up, too.
- Hotels were about 84 percent full last month, and revenue per available room, a key measure of financial performance, jumped by 30 percent, compared with the same month last year, the report said.
Still, Bostonians, being the half-empty-cup kind of folks they are, "are cautious about calling it a recovery. Jose Estrompa, vice president at Saunders Hotel Group, which owns three Boston properties, said this July was much better than in the past two years, but revenue per available room remained about 13 percent lower than the average over the past decade."
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