A recent survey found parents of Boston’s college students will be paying the most expensive lodging costs in America during the spring, a price hospitality professionals said is influenced by May graduation.
Tourists will have to pay more than $194 a night for a double room late this spring, according to the CheapHotels.org survey, which observed prices for periods throughout May.
Following Boston on the list are New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
The majority of Hub hotels claim three-star ratings, making overall rates rather high, said Boston University School of Hospitality Administration Professor Dr. Michael Oshins in an email.
“Since real estate in Boston is a premium, budget hotels do not make economic sense,” he said in the email. “In order for a developer to recoup costs, it is necessary to build upscale properties, which charge higher rates.”
In Boston, the demand of tourists exceeds the supply of hotels, making it possible for hotels to bump up prices, he said.
The survey, which determined rankings based on rates in May, took hotel rates from hotel-booking sites including Expedia, Priceline and Orbitz.
With more than 200,000 students in Boston, May is one of the peak seasons due to graduation weekends, so rates are naturally higher, Oshins said.
SHA professor Barry Bloom said as Boston becomes inundated with families traveling to see graduations in May, the demand for rooms increases.
“More demand creates the opportunity for the hotels to raise rates,” he said.
The Mandarin Oriental Hotel Boston, a Forbes Five-Star award winner, does receive a lot of guests in May, said Tom Stroik, director of sales and marketing at the hotel.
“It gets very busy in April and May,” he said. “Graduation without a doubt is the largest demand generator.”
Stroik said May is also a big corporate month, with large parties of people booking rooms at the Mandarin for corporate retreats and conventions.
This May alone, three big conventions are taking place in Boston for the American Association of Immunologists, the Heart Rhythm Society and the National Cable Telecommunications Association, Stroik said.
However, in other months, rates at the Mandarin and other Boston hotels might be different.
“If the study was done in February, Boston rates would be much lower,” Oshins said. “New Orleans rates would be higher, due to Mardi Gras.”
Stroik said after looking at rates for various Mandarin Oriental hotels across the nation for the week of May 31, prices differed across the country based on peak seasons.
“Our first selling room is $445,” Stroik said, referring to the baseline price of a Mandarin room in Boston that week. “In Miami, it’s in a slow season, so rooms start around $300.”
Bloom said hotel prices fluctuate incredibly often, making it hard to tack down an overall picture of hotel rates in any city.
“Hotels now use what we call a revenue management model,” Bloom said. “They are constantly looking at the demand or anticipated demand for given dates.”
Bloom said as hotels scan the prices of competitors in the city, an individual hotel could sometimes adjust prices several times a day.
Citing information available to subscribers of STR Global, a hotel market analysis firm, Bloom said that throughout the entire year Boston is not the most expensive city for lodgings.
For example, Boston averaged only fifth most expensive in 2011, he said. The four cities with overall higher rates than Boston were New York, Honolulu, Miami and San Francisco.
