D.C.'s Hard Stop on Tourism Ahead of the Inauguration
Skift Take
Though already restricted due to Covid, Biden’s presidential inauguration week was expected to boost tourism in the nation’s capital. Those hopes are now dashed on the heels of last week's domestic terror attack — a sad plight for a city trying to revive from the pandemic.
Any given inauguration year, hundreds of thousands of residents and tourists descend on Washington D.C., bearing frigid temperatures to watch a new president being sworn in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, but also to enjoy the nation's capital's iconic Smithsonian museums, art galleries, and international restaurants.
Hotel rooms in the Washington metropolitan area, stretching as far as Maryland and Virginia suburbs, would sell out months ahead. Occupancy rates ranged from 97 percent in 2009 for President Barack Obama's first inauguration with $599 average daily rates, to 95 percent in 2017 at $708 average daily rates, with hotels having three to five night minimums, according to Destination DC hotel inauguration data obtained from market data firm STR.
This year’s inauguration was expected to be different, with a virtual parade and no inaugural balls and no public crowd on the National Mall due to Covid’s continuing alarming rates in the region. The Presidential Inaugural Committee had already urged citizens to “refrain from traveling to Washington DC and inst
