Is Donald Trump's Presidential Run Hurting Trump Hotels?

Patrick Clarke
by Patrick Clarke
Last updated: 11:30 AM ET, Thu May 26, 2016

Photo courtesy of Thinkstock.

It hasn't always been pretty, but presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has so far been successful in his bid for the Oval Office. However, his hotel chain appears to be paying the price for his tumultuous campaign and the constant media attention it has garnered.

Online travel company Hipmunk - with the help of Priceonomics - recently analyzed the campaign's impact on Trump's hotel business and found that it's been mostly negative.

In fact, the share of bookings at Trump Hotels on Hipmunk as a percentage of total hotel bookings has plummeted by 59.3 percent compared to the same period last year.

During the first quarter of 2016, Trump Hotels accounted for a 0.7 percent share of Hipmunk bookings, compared to 1.7 percent in the first quarter of 2015.

Diving deeper, Hipmunk examined the impact of Trump's rise on the hotel brand's most popular locations.

Trump Soho New York and Trump International Hotel Las Vegas experienced by far the biggest dropoff in bookings, with their respective shares of each city's total hotel bookings declining by more than 70 percent.

The Trump International Hotel & Tower Toronto's share of bookings was down 47 percent compared to the first quarter of 2015, while the Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago's share dropped by 31 percent.

READ MORE: Woman Allegedly Urinates on Donald Trump's Scotland Golf Course

Even the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, which claims more than one-tenth of the city's hotel bookings, experienced a 17 percent decline in booking share.

Of the properties Hipmunk analyzed, only the Trump International Hotel Waikiki Beach Walk saw an increase in share of bookings, climbing four percent.

READ MORE: Survey: Donald Trump's Presidential Campaign Bad for Hotel Business

It's important to point out that Hipmunk users tend to be younger travelers.

"Who knows what the Trump brand will glean from any of this, or if it will suffer any permanent damage from the Donald Trump candidacy," writes Kelly Soderlund. "Granted, Hipmunk users tend to be urban millennials, and so our own demographics come into play here as well."

Nonetheless, the data is telling and all indications are that Trump's political success is coming at a significant cost to his hotel business. After all, a survey conducted for Forbes by consulting firm Penn Schoen Berland earlier this year found that 45 percent of U.S. residents earning at least $200,000 annually would set out to avoid staying at a Trump-branded hotel or visiting a Trump-branded golf course over the next four years.


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Patrick Clarke

Patrick Clarke

Senior Editor

A Maryland native and wanderer who has lived across the U.S. from North Carolina to SoCal, Patrick Clarke graduated from Towson University with a B.S. in journalism. He previously worked for Bleacher

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