Kamala Harris’ move to the top of the ticket gave DNC hotel bookings in Chicago a boost, but don’t expect Taylor Swift-level crowds

Enthusiasm about having Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket is boosting last-minute hotel bookings tied to the Democratic National Convention, although occupancy levels during next week’s event may still fall short of expectations.

The Democratic National Committee signed contracts with more than 40 Chicago hotels, including the InterContinental Chicago Magnificent Mile, Palmer House Hilton and Sheraton Grand Chicago, according to party officials. The hotels agreed to hold thousands of rooms at contracted rates until Aug. 7, but interest in the new nominee attracted a burst of late bookings, and party officials say some hotels have decided to extend that deadline.

“We’ve seen a massive upsurge in interest,” said Ben Hardin, executive director of the Democratic Party of Illinois. “This is anecdotal, but there seems to be newfound energy.”

So far, hotel operators say the convention hasn’t been a blockbuster event like Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, which packed downtown hotels with big-spending concertgoers for three nights last summer.

“The DNC will probably not be the total, absolute blowout some people predicted,” said Maverick Hotels and Restaurants CEO Robert Habeeb, the proprietor of the 223-room Sable at Navy Pier.

Habeeb said the DNC’s use of the rooms his hotel set aside “has been poor” and he is now successfully renting out the reserved rooms to the general public. “Our expectations may have been too high,” Habeeb said.

But the event is still generating significant demand, Habeeb said, and will most likely help Chicago hotels end the all-important summer season on a high note.

Party officials say they expect 50,000 visitors , including delegates, dignitaries, elected officials, party members and media, to attend the four-day extravaganza, which kicks off at the United Center on Monday. The political convention comes on the heels of  the four-day Lollapalooza festival and other downtown mega-events such as NASCAR’s Chicago Street Race. Altogether, the summer events have strengthened a hotel market still fragile after the pandemic’s gut punch.

“Everyone loses money in the first quarter, and in the second quarter gets close to break-even, but the summer is just like Christmas, it’s when you move into profitability,” Habeeb said. “And this is absolutely going to be a record summer.”

Nabil Moubayed, general manager of the InterContinental at 505 N. Michigan Ave., said he is still working with the DNC. The convention reserved more than 80% of the hotel’s 792 rooms.

“We haven’t met our original expectations yet, but the hotel is also probably doing a bit better than some of the others,” he said. “We’re between 80% and 90% toward where we thought we’d be, which is not bad, and every day, every hour really, we’re in contact with the DNC housing folks.”

Even with the thousands of convention-goers, city hotels likely won’t be filled up next week, said Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group, which tracks room occupancy.

As of Aug. 5, 63.7% of the hotel rooms in Chicago’s central business district were booked for Monday, the first day of the convention, with hotel occupancy hitting a peak of 70.3% on Thursday when Vice President Harris closes out the event with her acceptance speech.

“The numbers are going to increase by a couple of points for sure,” Freitag said, but the final tally won’t be known until the end of August. “Then we’ll be able to see exactly what happened.”

Moubayed and other hotel operators still worry that ordinary tourists and daily commuters might avoid downtown next week, squelching business for restaurants and tourist attractions, canceling the benefits brought by the convention.

“There are a lot of companies telling people to stay home,” he said.

But even if that happens, the DNC could still have a positive long-term impact, Freitag said. Millions will watch on television, and if the convention goes smoothly, meeting planners and even more tourists may decide Chicago is worthy of future visits.

“This is a very high-profile, nationally important event, even internationally important, so a lot of people will be looking at the city,” he said.

Moubayed agrees and said Chicago should show off a bit.

“We’ve dressed the outside of our hotel beautifully, and on the inside, the entire hotel looks like the Fourth of July,” he said. “We’re going to keep our bars open late, as well as the pool, where people will be able to order drinks and watch a live feed of the convention.”

Brian Arevalo, senior vice president of HVS, a hospitality industry consultant, said weekday events like the DNC can provide important boosts, partly because even though summer tourists and other convention goers have returned in big numbers, weekday business travel never recovered from the pandemic.

“Unfortunately, the third leg of the stool for hotels, business travel, is still lagging, and with Zoom replacing many in-person meetings, corporate travel is probably never going to return to what we saw pre-pandemic,” he said.

One possible drawback, he added, is that convention-goers and journalists treat the DNC as a business trip, and carefully watch how much money they spend. That’s a big contrast with Lollapalooza or Taylor Swift fans, who are more likely to splurge on food, lodging and other entertainment.

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“The hotel operators we speak to mostly say (the DNC) is going to help, but it won’t be like a Super Bowl,” Arevalo said.

In the first six months of 2024, hotel room demand hit 5.23 million room nights, 4.2% higher than 2023, and hotels recorded $1.17 billion in revenue, a record and 3.9% higher than 2023, according to Choose Chicago, the city’s tourism agency.

The popularity of Chicago among tourists is matched by growth in the city’s convention business. Through July, more than 1.5 million people attended conventions and events at McCormick Place Convention Center, and the campus is on pace to match or exceed 2023 attendance, said Cynthia McCafferty, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the municipal corporation that owns Navy Pier and McCormick Place. In September, one of the year’s largest events, the International Manufacturing Technology Show, will return and is expected to draw about 100,000 visitors.

“With the DNC next week and IMTS — the largest convention on our calendar — just a few weeks later, Chicago is facing a unique opportunity to showcase the best of our city to visiting conventiongoers and media from around the world,” said Choose Chicago interim President and CEO Rich Gamble in a prepared statement.

Habeeb said he expects the DNC to be better than the average August week, and may eventually help fill up Maverick’s hotels, even pushing business to its SpringHill Suites by Marriott Chicago in Chinatown. The company also hopes to open in time for the convention a new Hampton Inn & Suites in the Illinois Medical District.

“They’ve been working very hard to get it open, and they’re very close,” he said. “It’s going to be a race.”