Home Industries Hospitality & Tourism Room rates spike as Milwaukee-area hotels near capacity for RNC

Room rates spike as Milwaukee-area hotels near capacity for RNC

Hawthorne Extended Stay hotel in Oak Creek

A month out from the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, nightly rates for the few hotel rooms available in the metro area are up to six times more expensive the week of the convention than a regular summer week. It’s estimated that the RNC will bring about 45,000 people to Milwaukee for the convention July

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Hunter covers commercial and residential real estate for BizTimes. He previously wrote for the Waukesha Freeman and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A graduate of UW-Milwaukee, with a degree in journalism and urban studies, he was news editor of the UWM Post. He has received awards from the Milwaukee Press Club and Wisconsin Newspaper Association. Hunter likes cooking, gardening and 2000s girly pop.
A month out from the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, nightly rates for the few hotel rooms available in the metro area are up to six times more expensive the week of the convention than a regular summer week. It's estimated that the RNC will bring about 45,000 people to Milwaukee for the convention July 15 through 18, according to Visit Milwaukee, and more than 110 hotels have already been contracted by the Republican National Committee and its host committee, leaving few rooms open. According to hotel room booking websites including hotels.com and Kayak, there's only one hotel in the downtown Milwaukee area with availability: The Knickerbocker on the Lake, which has one room left for $483 per night. The week of July 29, the hotel's rooms are running about $143 per night. About 2 miles west of the RNC venue complex, the Village Inn, at 3001 W. Wisconsin Ave., has six rooms left for $272 per night. Those rooms are going for $89 the week of July 29. There's still a handful of rooms left in hotels around Mitchell International Airport, including the Hawthorn Extended Stay in Oak Creek that's charging $690 per night (more than six times as much as other weeks this summer) and the Motel 6 that's charging $200 per night (more than three times as much as other weeks this summer). According to hotels.com, there are 42 hotel properties with rooms available in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties the week of the RNC. Many of these properties have fewer than five rooms available. Hotel rooms in some of these suburban markets are also available for inflated prices. To stay at the Four Points by Sheraton in Brown Deer, it's going to cost $599 per night, compared to $109 per night the week of July 29. Similarly, rooms at the Price Pointe Inn in Waukesha are going for $243 per night, compared to $96 later in July. Hotels in some of the communities farther from Milwaukee are seeing less dramatic rate increases, such as Geneva Inn in Lake Geneva which is charging $275 per night during the week of the RNC and other weeks throughout the summer.

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