The hotel had opened to much fanfare just months before former President Donald Trump took office, and quickly became a draw for Trump loyalists and insiders during his tenure.
“I mean, we were very busy,” Shawn Matijevich, the former chef of the hotel’s steak restaurant, explains to CNN. “With so many of them every day, you know it got almost overwhelming at times – how many VIPs and members of our government that you know make the headlines are all in the same place.”
A hotel worker told CNN this month, “We haven’t been doing that bad since the coronavirus until I would say probably a month ago. It’s really slowed down.”
“It’s normal at this time of the year to have these kinds of delays, but because of everything that was going on, it actually had a different time.”
Indoor restaurants and bars in Washington are limited to 25% capacity or 250 people in total, whichever is smaller. The nation’s capital had interrupted all indoor dining in December as Covid-19 cases and hospital admissions increased.
On a recent Friday night, CNN observed about 30 customers in the hotel’s bar and lounge over a three-hour period. But the main lifts were only used a handful of times, indicating that not many stayed overnight.
The halls of the hotel seemed largely lifeless around 7 p.m. ET.
“Where is everyone?” one of the men asked. The waiter threw up his hands slightly, as if to express his insecurity.
When asked about the hotel’s current occupancy and revenue figures, Eric Trump, who leads the day-to-day operations of the family real estate empire, praised the hotel in a statement without providing specific figures.
“Our location is second to none and we are incredibly proud to have the best hotel in our country’s capital,” he said.
During a separate CNN visit to the hotel, only a handful of people were in the lobby for several hours.
Hotels and other hospitality companies, which are a substantial part of Trump’s business empire, have been hit particularly hard during the outbreak as travelers stay at home and governments impose lockdowns.
Jan Freitag, senior vice president of Lodging Insights at STR, told CNN that in 2019 the occupancy rate of luxury hotels in downtown DC was 73%.
“So actually one in four rooms was empty,” said Freitag. “Four-in-five rooms are empty these days.”
While a standard room can usually be booked for about $ 500, a room on March 4 will cost about $ 1,300, according to a review of the hotel’s website. The Trump organization did not respond to multiple questions about whether the price hike was related to the QAnon conspiracy on March 4.
Still, the price hike underscores the draw the former president can still command even when he’s no longer on the road at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
God bless Donald Trump. I mean, what else can you do? ‘ a woman recently told CNN unsolicited in the hotel lobby. “We come here and we support him.”