Hotel rooms nearly full for DNC week

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DENVER - The Democratic National Convention is two weeks away. Republicans are not so excited by the prospect, but Democrats are flooding the area, which means hotel rooms are becoming scarce.

There is not much left and what is left is getting expensive, and far away.

Some hotel owners say people are prepared to travel from as far away as Wyoming to the north and from Pueblo to the south.

Gregg Tally is the owner of the Best Western Denver Southwest.

"I think you're going to find it will be very hard anywhere in town to book five or seven days in a row," he said.

If you do manage to find a room, you are going to pay a pretty penny to rest your head in the metro area from Aug. 25 to the 28.

Ona Capps is the front desk manager of the Howard Johnson in Wheat Ridge. She says they only have rooms available because a party cancelled their 18 room reservation.

"There will be absolutely nothing available. Absolutely nothing. Already today we filled 12 rooms. That was just bang. We've only got seven rooms left out of 108. The doubles are $195 and the suite Jacuzzi suite is $250," Capps said.

There are 42,000 hotel rooms in the Denver area and 8,000 of those are downtown. The Democratic National Convention took a block of 17,000 rooms. So, even if you could afford to cough up hundreds to thousands of dollars a night for a room minutes from the Pepsi Center, those rooms have been sold out for months.

The only hope people have of finding a room is looking further out of town, but the prices will still be high.

Hotel prices have doubled, some tripled, for the DNC. It may seem like price gouging but if you look at the sign on the back of every hotel door, you can see a maximum rate offered for each room. By law any hotel can go as high as that rate.

The Sleep Inn at the tech center is charging $479 for a standard double. In Lakewood, Tally's Best Western Denver Southwest is offering a similar room for just under $200.

Tally said, "Early bookers get a better rate and the late bookers usually pay a higher rate. As long as you don't exceed your back door rate - anything goes."

A lot of people are canceling the rooms they have booked, so if you call at the right time, you may be able to get a room.

The chances of getting a room for the entire week are getting scarce.

Hotel owners are confident these rooms will be rented, it's just a matter of how much people are willing to pay to be in one during the DNC, and how far you want to travel if you don't book one soon.