Think Minibar's Expensive? Try Parking
More hotels are charging for parking, and rates are rising sharply.
Aug. 13, 2007 — -- Business travelers certainly know by now that their hotel rooms are costing more than they did a few years ago. Less noticed, though, is what's happened to hotel parking rates.
More hotels are charging for parking, and rates are rising sharply at hotels that do.
According to PKF Consulting, hotels that charged for parking over an eight-year period ended in 2006 saw their parking revenue rise 51%. Over the same period at those hotels, PFK says, average daily room rates rose 18%, and overall revenue rose 14%. PKF, an Atlanta-based research company, analyzed data from 383 hotels at the request of USA TODAY.
Though a higher volume of parked cars accounts for some of the revenue increase, PKF research director Robert Mandelbaum says the higher parking revenue means guests are paying higher rates.
Many major hotels say they have boosted their rates in recent months, and parking fees can add up to a big slice of a guest's bill.
For example, the daily fee for parking a car at The Peninsula New York, which, like many big-city hotels, offers only valet parking, increased last month from $55 to $60. That's the most expensive rate USA TODAY found when it called 30 hotels in six cities -- New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Honolulu -- known for high parking rates.
Two Manhattan parking garages within one block of The Peninsula are $16 and $17 cheaper than The Peninsula's daily rate. Of six hotels contacted in Manhattan, The Waldorf-Astoria has the least-expensive rate: $45 for 24 hours.
Outside Manhattan, parking fees are less expensive. In Queens, hotel guests can park their own cars for $22 daily at the New York LaGuardia Airport Marriott or $22 a day at the Wyndham Garden Hotel LaGuardia Airport. "I was blown away by a $45-per-night charge on a family trip to New York a few months ago," says frequent business traveler Warren Kurtzman.
Kurtzman, a media consultant in Raleigh, N.C., estimates he's been charged a parking fee seven of the roughly 70 nights he has parked at hotels during the past 12 months. "It seems like rates are up at least $5 per night vs. two or three years ago."
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