President Trump’s hotel in Washington, DC, jacked up its rates after he took office more than it had planned to charge — and the posh facility outperformed his company’s expectations as a result, a new report said Friday.
The Trump International Hotel, in the opulently renovated Old Post Office near the National Mall, brought in about $18 million in revenue in the first four months of 2017, in part by charging room rates that were 60 percent higher than what had been planned, according to documents viewed by the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story.
From January to April, the average daily room rate was $660 compared with $495 for similar hotels, according to the documents. The hotel had projected its average daily rate would be $416, the Journal reported.
The hotel made a handsome profit of about $2 million during that period after paying rent and other expenses, despite budgeting for an expected $2.1 million loss.
The Trump Organization declined to comment about the financial reports — saying only that it was proud of the hotel’s success.
The hotel files its financial records every month to the General Services Administration, which oversees the Trump Organization’s lease.
The records later are posted on the GSA’s website, but the financial information is usually redacted.
But the GSA on Thursday posted unredacted versions of documents containing data on the first four months of 2017. The agency took the documents down later that evening, the paper said.
The Trump Organization signed a contract in 2013 with the federal government to lease the historic post office and turn it into an upscale hotel near many of the capital’s most famous landmarks, including the White House.
But ethics experts called it a symbol of the problems Trump has in separating his private business interests from his job as commander-in-chief.
Trump denied there are any ethical issues, though the hotel has become a hot spot for Trump operatives, White House staffers, lobbyists and foreign governments.
“It appears that the hotel has been perceived as a place to be seen and have power lunches and that sort of thing,” Sean Hennessey, a hotel consultant, told the Journal.
“The numbers on the [food and beverage] side indicate it has that kind of cachet.”
The Trump Organization also doubled its membership initiation fees at its Mar-a-Lago golf course in Florida earlier this year — prompting critics to charge that the president is cashing in on his office.