TodayHotels brace for inauguration
Local hotels and motels see record bookings for days leading up to Jan. 20, 2009.
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Article RatingThe third week of January is normally a slow time for local hotels and motels.
The holidays are over, tourism dries up and people hunker down for the winter.
“Typically, occupancy is around 20 percent,” said Lee Lemelman, general manager of the Hampton Inn in Carlisle.
But there’s nothing typical about the days leading up to Jan. 20, 2009 -- the historic inauguration of the nation’s first African-American president.
“Hampton Inn has a ton of properties from here all the way south to Virginia,” Lemelman said. “All of them are being sold out real quick. Everybody is trying to find hotels and there is nothing real close.
“We are booked solid for that weekend,” he added. Lemelman estimates 95 percent of the inn’s 97 rooms will be occupied by guests coming from all across the country to attend the inauguration.
“I love it,” he said. “We would rather be busy.”
Downtown, too
Heather Kattouf is general manager of the Comfort Suites in downtown Carlisle. Earlier this month, she said about 50 percent of the hotel is booked for the third week of January, although the typical busy season for Comfort Suites is April through October.
“It’s all related to the inauguration,” Kattouf said. “This is historic. Everybody is thrilled by it.”
Hotels closer to Washington D.C. are booked solid in anticipation of the event, she explained, so demand for available rooms has moved north.
“As rooms open up in the south, they are taken quickly and reservations further north are cancelled,” Kattouf said.
On the pike
Dennis Patel is a manager at the Hotel Carlisle Embers Convention Center on the Carlisle Pike.
As of Monday, he said, 50 percent of its 265 rooms have been booked for that week. Of the reservations, about 25 percent are directly linked to the inauguration, according to Patel. Many of the rest are regular clients.
“There is not a whole of excitement yet, but who knows how many more people will walk in from the highway?” Patel said.
Tom Biesecker is general manager of the Fairfield Inn & Suites, which opened about four months ago in South Middleton Township. He said Monday that virtually all the hotel’s 84 rooms are booked for Jan. 19-20.
“We have three different groups coming in from the Midwest,” Biesecker said. He estimates 70 percent of the reservations relate directly to the Obama inauguration.
Biesecker has not seen anything like this in his 13 years in the hospitality industry. What makes this an historic event is that people from the Midwest are willing to drive all the way to Carlisle, only to drive on to Washington, D.C., Biesecker said.
“It is just amazing,” he added. “Hotels as far as three hours away are being affected by the inauguration.”
