* Crain’s last week…
Downtown Chicago hotels that were counting on a Democratic National Convention bump in business might need a late surge of reservations to pull it off, based on booking data ahead of next week’s event.
As of Aug. 5, visitors have booked between 63% and 70% of downtown hotel rooms during the four days of the convention, which kicks off Aug. 19, according to data tracked by real estate information company CoStar Group. Those occupancy rates are slightly below the numbers downtown hotels saw during the comparable week of August last year, CoStar data shows
I reached out to CoStar and asked if they had any updated numbers. Turns out, those Crain’s numbers compared apples to oranges. Here is what CoStar told me about 2023 hotel occupancy in the Chicago business district for this year’s DNC dates…
On the books (42-45%), Actualized (63-75%)
The most recent 2024 numbers Costar has are for August 12…
On the books (60-68%), Actualized (TBD)
Crain’s was comparing actual numbers last year to pre-booked numbers this year.
However, if past is prologue, we can likely expect that the eventual “actualized” number to be significantly higher than the “on the books” number, which is from a week before the DNC began.
* Meanwhile, this is from the Washington Post yesterday…
The Democrats’ 2024 convention seemed likely to unfold with echoes of the unrest that disrupted the ’68 gathering. And it’s still possible, with an estimated 40,000 demonstrators expected to gather Monday to protest the Biden administration’s position on the war in Gaza.
* But here’s the Washington Post today…
Organizers of the Coalition to March on the DNC had predicted a crowd of tens of thousands as recently as Monday morning, noting that buses of protesters had arrived from out of state. But by afternoon, spare protest signs littered the ground and fewer than 2,000 protesters filled a portion of Chicago’s Union Park, according to police stationed nearby who had surveyed the area with a drone.
* More…
…Adding… Sun-Times…
The group of protesters marching down Washington Boulevard was briefly split into two groups but have re-organized in the face of a roadblock — the media.
Photographers and a gaggle of media are getting in the way of the protest route. The protest briefly stopped to tell camera crews to get out of the way.
Hilarious…
