Uptown hotels booked as end-of-year business travel season peaks

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Occupancy rates that are routinely at 75 percent this year are suddenly much higher making it tougher for business men and women to find a room inside the Interstate 277 loop.

Consultant Tim Seymour is going to Charlotte to meet with clients next week.

“I’ve seen those prices creeping higher and higher and the availability of those rooms going down and down,” he said. “I don’t know what’s behind that but as a business traveler you’re left scratching your head.”

Eyewitness News checked online booking site for rooms next week and found 10 of the most prominent hotels in uptown are already sold out.

The few that do have rooms are charging between $400 and $600 per night.

Syd Smith, who heads the Charlotte Hotel Association, said occupancy rates are at record levels in Charlotte and he said end-of-the year business travel is contributing to the spike in demand for hotel rooms.

“A lot of business travel has been in town all during the recent weeks and leading up to Nov. 1 because they know we’re getting ready to go into the holidays. Businesses are trying to wrap up and of the year stuff on the road,” Smith said.

Add to that some mid-sized conventions and business meetings and uptown hotel rooms are getting more scarce, despite months of damaging publicity from uptown protests and HB2.

“We hear all about the meetings and conventions that are canceling or not coming to town. We hear all about the disruptions in the streets and that nobody is going to be coming to town. But they are,” Smith said.

Seymour, who has to stay in a hotel outside of uptown said he can’t help but notice all the construction in the center city.

“I hope some of it is for building new hotels,” he said.

Cox Media Group