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Room rates rose between 17 and 43 percent in the U.S. this summer with the steepest rate increases creeping down the California coast, due to a high number of both business and leisure travelers.
If you’ve checked into a hotel in the last few months, you have probably noticed that rates have leaped upward.
And they probably won’t drop any time soon.
During June, July and August, the average hotel rate at major U.S. destinations jumped 17 percent, compared with the same period in 2011, according to a study by the hotel pricing website HotelsCombined.
Some of the steepest rate increases this summer were at hotels in California. Anaheim — home of Disneyland and Disney California Adventure Park — recorded the highest price increases, a jump of 43 percent to an average daily rate of $155.25 in 2012 from $109 in 2011, according to the website.
Other big hotel increases in the Golden State were in San Francisco (24 percent), San Diego (21 percent), Los Angeles (19 percent) and Palm Springs (17 percent).
A separate study by TravelClick Inc. — a New York company that provides booking software for major hotel chains — looked at bookings made for August to December and compared them with those a year earlier. It found that the average daily rate in big cities in North America had climbed 5 percent since 2011.
Both TravelClick and Hotelscombined attribute the rate increases to increasing demand by vacationers and business travelers.
“Business and leisure travel demand through the end of the year is strong” and has pushed up daily rates, said Tim Hart, executive vice president of research and development at TravelClick.
(c)2012 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by MCT Information Services. 
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Tags: california, rates