Hotel rates rising fast as travel resumes

Planning a summer trip? With demand surging, hotels are raising rates.

Average hotel rates in Cancun are now $205 a night, up from $45 a year ago, when few people were traveling.?What about here in the Northwest?

In Provo Utah rates are hovering around $169 and can be over $200 on weekends.?

Many travelers are asking why such sharp increases are happening? The answer, of course is demand is up. There has been much pent-up demand from travelers having to stay home for months. However, there is one other factor that you might not consider. With the return of business, not all employees are returning to work in hospitality.?

Regardless of where you travel, there are shortages of workers in hotels, restaurants and other service businesses.?With the lack of employees, to clean and rent rooms, there are many nights when we don’t have all of our inventory available.?If you have fewer rooms to rent and more demand for those rooms, you can guess what that means.?Higher Rates.

As a hotel sales guy, I can tell you that it’s a good time to negotiate a rate with your favorite hotel property. That way we can plan on you for volume stays when travel demand slows down and I can give you a price break right now.??