Washington’s leading luxury hotels have joined forces to market the region as an upscale destination and attract more affluent visitors for longer stays.
The new marketing program, launched Thursday by the Washington, D.C. Convention & Tourism Corp., offers “Luxe DC” packages to potential visitors at the city’s top 10 high-end hotels. Packages include credits for in-hotel restaurants and spas that increase in dollar value for longer stays.
While upscale hotel chains have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new projects and renovations in the past five years, the region isn’t known as a luxury destination when compared with other high-profile U.S. cities, meaning room rates are still relatively less expensive.
“The point of ‘Luxe DC’ is not to discount business, it’s to drive length of stays,” said George Terpilowski, general manager for The Fairmont Washington D.C., a participating hotel.
But the promotion should help boost the city’s image as a luxury destination, he said.
“Over the last few years there’s been a really dramatic repositioning of Washington’s luxury hotel portfolio,” Terpilowski said. “I think what Washington is often underestimated on is the portfolio of luxury hotels. … [We wanted] to make sure we were getting as much attention as cities like New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Chicago were getting.”
The city has seen nearly $400 million in new luxury hotel construction, including the Mandarin Oriental and The Ritz-Carlton, and more than $200 million in renovations of existing upscale hotels.
The investments have helped drive traffic to those upscale hotels. While many of the region’s hotels saw a dip in occupancy from 2005 to 2006, occupancy in the city’s luxury hotels has increased — as have room rates.
For example, in typically slow November, the city’s upscale chains had an occupancy rate of 71 percent, up 3 percent from the previous November, according to figures from Smith Travel Research. Average room rates in November for those same hotels were $215. Economy chains, by comparison, were at 53.5 percent occupancy in November, down 14.5 percent from the previous November.
The initial promotion will run through March, but the Washington, D.C. Convention & Tourism Corp. will look for additional ways to market the city to high-income visitors, one of Washington’s target markets, said Victoria Isley, a spokeswoman for the tourism organization. “If you look at the average D.C. visitor compared to an average U.S. traveler, D.C. visitors are more highly educated and they’re more affluent,” Isley said.
