Racked by glut of rooms

The Wit Hotel at State and Lake streets features a roof-top bar. The Wit, a boutique hotel that opened in the Loop last month, seeks to impart a playful, chic sense of humor on its guests.

[Madison]

An informational add-on to this story would be the number of conventions -- that feed the hotel industry -- that have been run out of Chicago by union work rules and excessive costs, higher hotel rates than Orlando or Las Vegas, and Chicago's higher business and sales taxes. There are a lot of culprits in the declining hotel market in Chicago and they have less to do with the national recession than with local greed from union leaders, city and county officials, and -- yes -- the hotels themselves.

[Randy]

I live in a suburb and used to stay downtown 5-6 times a year but no longer since the Mayor taxes everything.Sure its trivial but its that smug Mayor and his thieving family and friends.No to the Olympics.It would be a catastrophe.

[hussein]

illinois is the next california

[James Reyes]

Why don't hospitals rent out rooms for low risk patients in recovery?

[Carter Harrison]

Chicago is fairing better than moat cities as far as the recession, yet there is a glut of hotels vying for the high to luxury market. I can tell you that the new trump Chicago is on a good day at about 30 percent occupancy. It has to battle for guests with the four seasons,Ritz,Peninsula,ParkHya tt,Sofitel
W,Inter-coninental,Conrad and now the New Elysian. There is a need for affordable Hotels not upscale ones.

[JohnNS]

I thought that Chicago would be full of pilgrims coming to worship at the political birthplace of Obama...

[KingBob]

Let's get downtown hotels under $99 again and you'd see more people checking-in for the weekend. Prices are crazy considering the very little time actually spent in the room!

[da truth]

are hookers cheaper?

[Pete]

Hotels all over the country have been gouging customers like none other in good times. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, I'm kind of enjoying it. Lets see hotels have to compete for business at a reasonable price rather than raking in the money just for existing.

[OSD]

I live in Schaumburg. I volunteered downtown this weekend for an event Saturday and Sunday. Since I had to be at the event at 7am Saturday and Sunday morning, I was considering staying overnight downtown so I could save 2 hours of sleep Saturday night. The Saturday event let out at 11pm. Cheapest hotel stay?$150. That's before parking and taxes. Parking would have been $30. Taxes at the hotel:$15. So $195 to save two hours of sleep. No thanks.

So obviously the solution is to build another 5 star hotel downtown that will remain empty on the weekends.

[stereotype me]

i hope they all go out of business.

[Julie]

Congratulations, Madison, for getting a union-bashing comment first here, as is the practice for almost all Tribune comments. Blame the unions? How about the greedy corporations? And speaking of greed, and taxes, why do cigarettes almost cost $10 a pack now. Oh, right, unions. HA!

[Julie]

Kingpin, I feel much safer in the Loop after dark than I ever would in Gary in broad daylight! Only reason I go there is to buy my cigarettes because the are so cheap in Indiana.

[Traveller]

Chicago's hotels are expensive. I have friends who work as employees and they are struggling because of fewer guests and events. Whether union or not, the people who work there are more often than not just trying to earn a living.

As far as expensive, one just needs to look at New York. If Chicago has a problem (and it does), New York is worse. I think Las Vegas had it right: Get people to visit and spend money. Whether convention or vacation, make it inviting to be here.

[Bloodsuckers]

Face facts, Chicago's taxation is... counter-productive. With THE highest sales-tax in the nation - to which you must add the hotel tax, this, that and the other tax{es}, Chicago's... priced itself out of reach of most travelers - vacationers and/or business. Chicago can NOT compete with Nevada {Vegas} or Florida {Orlando, etc} for conventions - period. That goes for trade shows, conferences and/or all other business functions.
Rather than deal with the FACT that Chicago's and Cook County's government entities are on a spending- spree {well beyond revenues} and refuse to accept that taxes have an inverse relationship to spending and ultimate revenue, they [Daley, Stroger, Quinn, etc] want to RAISE taxes.
With the mentality of 'entitlement' funding and taxing the fewer and ever fewer taxpayers left standing ever more being as it is, it's a wonder that Chicago and Cook County haven't been Clevelandized and Detroitized... already. However, be as sure as the sun will rise in the east tomorrow that Chicago is well on its way to being... Chicagoized - plundered for every penny for an insatiable government run by corrupt grifters and for whom everything/every cent STILL wouldn't be enough.
Will the last one out of Chicago please blow out the candle? It's game, set and match for the city of slumping shoulders that doesn't work any longer and where that toddling town is unable to walk upright under the burdens of corrupt government, an ignorant electorate and by citizens who refuse to take up arms to cease back their city and county from gang-bangers, illegals and crooked politicians.
Well, the turnip's dry and you can't get any blood from a stone. Implosion under the burdens of a self declared 'sanctuary city' and where the entitlement recipients rule the roost is the ONLY possible ends.
Liquidate you assets in Chicago, Cook County and Illinois for whatever you can get for 'em and get out while you can. There's no future but destitution in these parts.

[Lucky Pierre]

How true "Bloodsuckers." And many "locals" used to go into Chicago, maybe many more times than tourists and the business market, but how many have stopped because of all the things you mentioned. After Stroger and Daley raised the taxes on everything, not to help the people who are visiting or live here, but to line their pockets, those of the 50 Alder Thieves and those of friends and relatives, people stopped coming even before the recession hit. The last time I was in the city, I added up all the costs and the taxes - tax on parking, sales tax, entertainment tax and hotel tax - and I was done "enabling" these criminals. I can buy a plane ticket to another town for the amount of taxes the city collected in just 24 hours. Nice job Richie.

[Richie]

I always felt I was getting ripped off staying downtown! High prices, high taxes, and high parking rates. What goes around comes around.

[Andie J]

Don't you feel terrible that people don't want to pay nearly $200/nite for a 3 star hotel? Oh, those poor hoteliers. They might actually have to tighten their belts like the rest of the country. The last time I stayed downtown was Jan 2008. Even thru Priceline, the bill was nearly $200/nite. And we didn't even get linen service. For that kind of money, I want clean sheets! It's no longer worth it to spend the nite downtown. I'd rather take the train & go back home.

[Independent Voter Joliet]

Madison wrote:

An informational add-on to this story would be the number of conventions -- that feed the hotel industry -- that have been run out of Chicago by union work rules and excessive costs, higher hotel rates than Orlando or Las Vegas, and Chicago's higher business and sales taxes. There are a lot of culprits in the declining hotel market in Chicago and they have less to do with the national recession than with local greed from union leaders, city and county officials, and -- yes -- the hotels themselves.

I am sorry more than the unions which everyone wants to blame the answer is real simple conventions have gone to other cities sine the smoking ban and the high taxes.. all these hotels are betting on the Olympics coming to Chicago and having their hotels paid off and having all that money as profit.. the mothballed and held construction is also the reason Daley can't balance the budget he figures this money as income if it doesn't come through he looks for things to sell.. apparently the Politicians have never heard the term money on hand.. when budgeting..

[Independent Voter Joliet]

James Reyes wrote:

Why don't hospitals rent out rooms for low risk patients in recovery?

It would probably be cheaper..