DC hotels are nearly sold out for inauguration, even before Election Day

Lebawit Lily Girma | (TNS) Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON — This may be a “sensationally unpredictable” U.S. election season, but travelers are confidently betting that they’ll see their candidate’s hand on the Bible on Inauguration Day. In this case, they’re not just ponying up for the usual gambling that happens around major events — it’s big-ticket travel to Washington, D.C., that they’re splurging on, particularly for the week leading up to Jan. 20, 2025, when either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will be sworn in.

At least five months ahead of the 60th presidential inauguration, a majority of the city’s luxury hotels appear to be fully sold out, showing their reservation calendars blocked out for dates ranging from Jan. 14 to Jan. 21. According to multiple online searches that Bloomberg News ran from late September through Oct. 9, only a handful have remaining availability — at gangbuster prices, even for entry-level rooms.

The Kimpton Hotel Monaco in downtown D.C. has rates from $2,800 a night, the nearby Sofitel is charging upward of $1,400 and the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown is going for around $1,700, representing prices hikes of up to 1,047%. None of those prices are for rooms larger than 450 square feet; in mid-February 2025, when the buzz has died down, the same accommodations start at $244 and top out at $656.

A spokesperson for Hilton Hotels Worldwide Holdings Inc. confirmed that if Hilton.com is showing as sold out — as 17 out of 25 of the company’s D.C. hotels currently appear online — the hotels likely have no availability over those dates. Other luxury properties, including the Four Seasons, Rosewood and Fairmont in town, also appear to be sold out, but representatives from those brands declined to discuss demand around the big event.

While Destination DC, the city’s tourism marketing arm, says it’s normal for presidential inaugurations to stoke tourism, Elliott Ferguson II, its chief executive officer, says this election cycle has already commanded “significant interest” that stands apart from recent history.

Because of pandemic restrictions, he says, “the public hasn’t been able to participate in (an) inauguration since 2017.” Worth acknowledging, too, is the momentum tied to the potential of the first female president “and the public’s ability to take part in history.” And it’s not just the traditional glass ceiling that Vice President Harris would be breaking; for onlookers of many different backgrounds, that she is also Black and of Indian descent multiplies the historic importance of her potential inauguration.

To that point, Google searches for “2025 presidential inauguration” show a spike starting on July 21, 2024 — the day Harris received President Joe Biden’s backing to take his place as the Democratic presidential nominee.

For Nicole Ratliff, a U.S. expat who resides in France with her 14-year-old twins, it was that moment — when Harris was moved up on the presidential ticket — that inspired her to book an international trip back to her onetime home of Washington. “I would have booked regardless if it was Biden as well, but with Kamala it’s a historic moment that I want my kids to witness,” she says, adding that she’d long felt regret over taking such historic events for granted when she lived in the capital.

Exclusive data from Booking Holdings Inc.’s metasearch site Kayak shows that Ratliff is hardly alone. Interest in D.C. during the week of Jan. 17 is five times greater in 2025 than it was in 2024, based on searches for flights to Washington. While the company was unable to pull data comparing that to search volume leading up to the 2017 inauguration, Google analytics suggest that there also was a frenzy of interest in Inauguration Day travel after Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination on July 22, 2016. This year that interest has been sustained since Harris’ confirmation on the ticket; in the 2016 election, the spike in interest halved almost immediately and dwindled further within days.

“Americans are traveling for the inauguration, with Kayak data showing searches into Washington, DC spiking after major political events,” says Kayak CEO Steve Hafner, citing the Republican and Democratic National Conventions and the presidential debates as reliable explanations for spikes in flight searches.

Record tourist crowds

Election season aside, Washington has been drawing record tourist crowds: In 2023, the nation’s capital received 25.95 million visitors, representing a 4% increase over its pre-pandemic levels and resulting in $10.2 billion in visitor spending.

The boom is set to continue: Hotel occupancy was up 3% year to date through July 2024, compared with 2023, a spokesperson for Destination DC confirmed.

Adding to the buzz of a Jan. 20 inauguration: Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday, this year coincides with the presidential swearing-in. That same day, an inauguration parade will make its way down Pennsylvania Avenue, adding to the pomp and circumstance.

Those who choose to venture to the nation’s capital for a three-day weekend, albeit in frigid weather, will find plenty of additional reasons to do so, starting with a slew of enticing restaurant openings in the city — including Dōgon at the Salamander hotel, by chef Kwame Onwuachi of New York’s acclaimed Afro-Caribbean restaurant Tatiana; La’Shukran at Union Market, a Middle Eastern bistro from 2024 James Beard Outstanding Chef Michael Rafidi; and Arrels, a Spanish restaurant from Michelin-starred chef Pepe Moncayo.

On the attractions side, The People’s House is a free immersive museum that opened in September 2023 and focuses on White House history. A crowd that’s enticed by the inauguration will no doubt enjoy a section where you can sit inside a full-scale replica of the Oval Office.

Bookings surprising

Another way to quantify the demand for the weekend before inauguration is by looking at short-term rentals, which also show unprecedented occupancy figures and rates.

Prices are soaring, too. In Arlington, Virginia, the average daily rate is pacing at $421 for Jan. 19 and 20, while rates in the Dupont Circle neighborhood have reached more than $700 per day — twice the average you’d have paid during that period in 2024, according to Beyond data.

“We didn’t expect to see this, honestly, given the high level of uncertainty,” says Beyond CEO Julie Brinkman of the volume of early bookings. Normally, she says, people book their trips in November, after the election’s outcome has been determined. Now that flexible cancellation policies are commonplace, she suspects travelers are booking with the sense that they have nothing to lose.

With both candidates commanding a passionate base, there’s reason for both hotels and vacation rentals to expect significant waves of cancellations on Nov. 6, or whenever election results are made final. But don’t expect providers to slash their prices as a result. Given the fervor around inauguration travel from voters on both sides of the aisle, rooms given up by one party’s loyalists are likely to be quickly scooped up by the other’s.

Kayak’s Hafner says the trick to experiencing it all is to avoid D.C. all together. “Consider a hotel outside of D.C. or in Baltimore,” he advises, with the promise of “cheaper rates and more availability.”

That’s what Ratliff, the U.S. expat, did. She booked a suite in McLean, Virginia, for a better value and space to spread out with her teens. But she isn’t married to her plans. If her candidate loses, she says, she’ll likely cancel her reservation. “Or we may still go to see friends who live in the area instead.”

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