City sidewalks are crammed in New York. Stores and Broadway shows are selling out.
And though the holiday season is traditionally the busiest time of the year for Manhattan hotels, a surge in pre-Christmas travelers is capping what travel watchers say is the strongest year in more than a decade for hotels in the city and across the nation.In the last couple of weeks, Manhattan hotels from the Carlyle to the Best Western at Times Square have been booked solid.
Spurred by a gently improving economy, cheaper air fares and the perennial draw of New York's holiday glitter, hordes of conventioneers, European travelers and sightseers have descended on the city, determined to shop at Macy's, gaze at Fifth Avenue window displays or marvel at the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.
"Our hotel usually requires two to three weeks' advance booking," said Thomas R. Civitano, vice president of marketing for the Plaza. "But during this time of the year, the amount of time doubles."
At least 2,000 guests have been turned away since the beginning of the month, he said. Next weekend will be fully booked as well.
"This has definitely been a good year for the hotel industry," said Mark Lomanno, executive director of Smith Travel Research, a consulting firm.
For New York City's hotels, which collectively boast one of the highest occupancy rates in the country, that means a tight squeeze, especially now.
Steven E. Trombetti, a spokesman for the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the number of hotel rooms has held relatively steady, at 65,000.
But Stephen Brener, a Manhattan broker of hotel rooms, who also analyzes demand for rooms, said it has fallen to 58,000, in part because some hotels, like the Vista, devastated by the the World Trade Center bombing last February, are under renovation.
Marion and Andres Binnmyr from Sweden, know that from firsthand experience. When the couple first arrived in New York City last week to enjoy the sights, their hotel, the Lexington Hotel, at 48th and Lexington Avenue, had only one room left, one with only a lone single bed. "It was very small," said Binnmyr. "But after that they put us in a bigger room."
Kim Jung Dae, a traveler from Seoul, South Korea, was simply squeezed out.
Though he had carefully planned a 10-day tour of the United States to include a weekend with his wife in New York City, he arrived on Saturday and drove his rental car first to the Roosevelt Hotel, then to the New York Hilton, only to find the same answer. No room at the inns. Nothing.
"I always heard New York is beautiful during Christmas," a dejected Kim said in broken English as he headed out to New Jersey to look for rooms. "We planned this for a long time. But everybody else also."
As travelers like Kim found, space in Manhattan's larger, upscale hotels was scooped up early by the annual flood of early December conventioneers and business groups, who combine days of shop talk with shopping.
Among those competing for hotel space last week were more than 4,000 members of the American Society of Association Executives, as well as two dozen women from the Midland Symphony Guild of Texas and a group of Russian bankers.
"This trip has made lots of pleasure," said Valery G. Znayko, chairman of the board of Progressbank, a commercial bank in Moscow, as he stood outside the St. Moritz Hotel. After meeting with American bankers, he said, he went across the street to F.A.O. Schwarz to shop for Christmas toys for his nephews.
Trombetti of the convention bureau says business travel has been bolstered this year in part by the expanded efforts of his bureau, including an increase in the marketing budget from $7.2 million to $8 million and the addition of sales representatives in Canada.
But plenty of those who have hustled in and out of hotel rooms since Thanksgiving were simply in New York City for the bright lights and merriment.
Many of the holiday sightseers are international travelers, coming from as far away as South Africa and the Philippines. This year, experts and hotel administrators say, in addition to more Venezuelans and Argentinians, the number of British, German and French travelers, who have had access to lower air fares, seems higher.
As Thomas and Gabriella Haenseroth from Berlin stood in front of the Plaza, listening to a five-piece ensemble, the Native Spirit Inka Jazz Fusion Band, play New Age-sounding music, they said they had got a bargain on their plane tickets for their first-ever trip to New York.
"Our tickets were only 800 Deutsche marks each," said Haenseroth as he pulled his fur cap over his forehead. "Usually they are 1,000 or 950 Deutsche marks.
Like other visitors, they said their hotel, the Washington Square Hotel in Greenwich Village, was bustling.
"They come to New York this time of the year regardless of the economy, crime or taxes," said Bob Wiener, owner of the Hotel Consulate near Times Square, where on Saturday morning he had less than 10 rooms available.
At the Pierre Hotel, more than 40 people were on the waiting list over the weekend. The Hotel Millenium and the New York Marriott in the financial district, as well as the New York Renaissance Hotel and Essex House also had wall-to-wall guests this weekend, as did most of the city's less pricey hotels, including the Best Western and Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel, both near Times Square.
The Loews Hotel on the East Side in midtown was booked solid, as was the Lexington Hotel nearby.
But Trombetti insists the city is never out of rooms. "It's the busiest year we've had in a while," he said. "But we don't want to discourage people from coming. We always say that there's always room for a last-minute visitor in New York."
He said that after Dec. 19, the number of travelers is expected to decline, and the hotels are expected to begin to offer special cut rates. But several Manhattan hotels reported they were booked steadily through New Year's.
Such promises, however, were of little consolation to William Litsinger, 32, who stood anxiously at the front desk of the Helmsley Windsor Hotel this weekend.
"My lovely wife lost our confirmation number for another Helmsley hotel," he told the desk clerk, explaining that he, his wife, and friends had flown in from Baltimore Saturday morning to shop in New York City and spend the night.
The clerks apologized but insisted that they were fully booked. There were about 20 parties on the waiting list, all in front of him. Litsinger said four of the six Helmsley Hotels had turned him away.
"What can you do?" Litsinger asked philosophically, turning away. "I guess I'll have to go to Jersey or sleep in the airport tonight."