Looking for a hotel room in the region in the middle of January so you can witness the inauguration of the first black U.S. president? Good luck, because so is the rest of the country.
Almost all hotels in Baltimore City, Anne Arundel County and Prince George’s County are at or approaching capacity for the week leading up to Barack Obama’s inauguration in Washington on Jan. 20, according to Maryland tourism officials.
Hotel rooms throughout the region have been put on hold by large groups, but some could pull out of the agreements by the middle of December, opening some rooms, said Maryland Tourism Department spokeswoman Connie Yingling.
“We just had a meeting about it this morning, and we looked around and said, ‘This is going to be bigger than when [Pope John Paul II visited Baltimore in 1995],’ ” Yingling said. “It’s a very tight market, and we’ve seen people are resorting to renting other people’s houses.”
In fact, one listing on www.craigslist.com advertised a four-bedroom, three-bathroom Owings Mills home would be available for rent for inauguration week — for an asking price of $8,000.
“Some people are really trying to capitalize on it,” Yingling said.
Matthew Dykstra, director of sales and marketing at the 757-room Hilton Baltimore, said activity is “looking good” for the middle of January.
“The whole city is lucky to be in close proximity to Washington,” Dykstra said. “It’s a wonderful event and a wonderful demand generator for the region’s hotels.”
The Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, a 754-room hotel in Harbor East, will be ready for the January rush, having recently completed a $20 million renovation of the property.
Though it opened in 2001, the hotel improved its rooms, with tiled entryways, new carpeting and redesigned furniture. It also added 37-inch high-definition televisions to each room, along with “multimedia areas that allow for access to laptops, MP3 players, iPods and other devices” Daniel Nadeau, general manager of the Marriott Waterfront, said in a statement.
For those still hoping to score a room for the inauguration, room availability can be located by calling the D.C. tourism office at 800-422-8644. Because the process of room reservations is so fluid, the information will only be available over the phone, Yingling said.
