Why are Hotel rooms in Portland so expensive (Astoria: rental car, rental)

[87112]

I want to go to Portland this weekend cause I need to buy something tax free. I searched rooms and even Motel 6 is asking something like 55 bucks for Portland area. Its January, who goes to Portland unless they have to or tax free shopping. Should it be 40 bucks or so. In the Northwest, only Vancouver BC has something of a world class city reputation to it and I find room in BC cost less than Portland for any star level. Portland has the rep of a place to buy drugs or go to strips joints.

[PNW-type-gal]

Well, because you are likely wrong about your perception of why people go to Portland. And rooms are cheaper in BC because the Canada-US exchange rate is currently extremely favorable to the US dollar. If you want cheaper rooms, look outside the downtown area of Portland. You can find hotels and hostels in the $40 range - just not in Portland. They aren't going to be particularly nice hotels, but they do exist.

Go to any one of the travel sites, put in your max price and search the greater Portland area and you will find what you are looking for.

[Squidlo]

Flights seem to cost more to Portland for some reason.

I can fly RT into LA for less from Houston. I will fly up to in Portland July. Rental cars are not cheap either. The cost estimates are not looking economical. Save your pennies for a trip into Portland.

I have a relative that will put us up for some of it to help keep costs down.

I will splurge on a hotel for a few nights.

[dirt _farmer]

S & d?

(anyone have an idea why this assbackwards forum won't let me capitalize that letter "D"?)

[eric351982]

That's nothing. Motel 6 up and down the I5 corridor are $80 a night!

[NeutralZone]

Originally Posted by 87112

I want to go to Portland this weekend cause I need to buy something tax free. I searched rooms and even Motel 6 is asking something like 55 bucks for Portland area. Its January, who goes to Portland unless they have to or tax free shopping. Should it be 40 bucks or so. In the Northwest, only Vancouver BC has something of a world class city reputation to it and I find room in BC cost less than Portland for any star level. Portland has the rep of a place to buy drugs or go to strips joints.

How much money do you think you're going to save by buying something tax free if you're going to spend money on a hotel room?

[j_k_k]

Originally Posted by 87112

I want to go to Portland this weekend cause I need to buy something tax free. I searched rooms and even Motel 6 is asking something like 55 bucks for Portland area. Its January, who goes to Portland unless they have to or tax free shopping. Should it be 40 bucks or so. In the Northwest, only Vancouver BC has something of a world class city reputation to it and I find room in BC cost less than Portland for any star level. Portland has the rep of a place to buy drugs or go to strips joints.

You have no idea how high the cost of bedbugs has gotten. They have to import them at an outrageous price per pound. This is bound to drive up the cost of hotel and especially motel rooms.

The good news is that you can probably stay in Vancouver if you want, then you won't have to pay the inflated rates, and you can still enjoy our tax-free shopping, drug trade, and strip scene.

[PNW-type-gal]

Originally Posted by Squidlo

Flights seem to cost more to Portland for some reason.

I can fly RT into LA for less from Houston. I will fly up to in Portland July. Rental cars are not cheap either. The cost estimates are not looking economical. Save your pennies for a trip into Portland.

It is always cheaper to fly into a larger hub airport than a smaller airport - for the same reason you can fly LA to Chicago or NY cheaper than you can fly from LA to Portland. My son can fly LA to DEN for about $125 roundtrip (if he picks times carefully). It's twice that out of Portland.

[CanuckInPortland]

Originally Posted by 87112

I want to go to Portland this weekend cause I need to buy something tax free. I searched rooms and even Motel 6 is asking something like 55 bucks for Portland area. Its January, who goes to Portland unless they have to or tax free shopping. Should it be 40 bucks or so. In the Northwest, only Vancouver BC has something of a world class city reputation to it and I find room in BC cost less than Portland for any star level. Portland has the rep of a place to buy drugs or go to strips joints.

Vancouver BC has a bigger tourist industry and also had the Olympics so it has more hotel rooms overall(and more large ones downtown) and also more supply when demand is down. There's some big highrise hotels in Vancouver that raise the price high in peak seasons(winter isn't a peak season really, people go to Whistler) and then have reduced rates to fill up all those rooms in slower periods. Portland has a growing tourist industry right now, so your claim that people only visit to go "buy drugs or go to strips joints" is kind of off. There's more tourists downtown these days in Portland, a lot more than five to ten years ago, so it's kind of a growing industry and not that many new hotels have been constructed(though some are being built right now).

But the real reason is the $CAD is really low compared to the dollar--though you have to see what the hotel price is in US$ after taxes for BC hotels also, can be slightly higher than what the initial rate listed is. Honestly with how cheap Canada is right now though, I recommend Americans spend more $USD up there and have a nice bargain trip--I saw some amazing deals in Victoria BC the other day. I mean, it's hard to find anything at that rate for even a weekend trip to Astoria down here.

[58rhodes]

basically Portland has always lacked enough hotel rooms for a metro its size