Donald Trump Makes $74,100 From Hotel Resort Fees Every Day
/Recently someone asked how much President Trump made on hotel resort fees. It has been about two years since I last looked into it, so for an update we’ll check back in with his hotels.
There are currently seven hotels run by the Trump Organization in the United States. Those hotels are:
DC’s Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C. (263 rooms)
Florida’s Trump National Doral Miami (742 rooms)
Hawaii’s Trump International Hotel Waikiki (462 rooms)
Illinois’ Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago (339 rooms)
Nevada’s Trump International Hotel Las Vegas (1,282 rooms)
New York’s Trump International Hotel and Tower New York (167 rooms)
Virginia’s Albemarle Estate at Trump Winery (10 rooms)
In addition to these seven hotels, developers pay to license the Trump name. One hotel that does that is the Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles, Florida. The hotel has 356 rooms.
Of those seven hotels directly owned by the Trump Organization, only two have hotel resort fees.
Florida’s Trump National Doral Miami (Resort fee of $28.25 incl tax, $25 before tax)
Trump International Hotel Las Vegas (Resort fee of $39.68 incl tax, $35 before tax)
The Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles, Florida also has a resort fee of $32.10 with taxes or $30 before taxes.
So that means that Trump is very directly profiting from the two hotels that are owned by the Trump Organization that charge resort fees. The Trump National Doral Miami is bringing in $25 per night multiplied by 742 rooms which means that is $18,550 per day. The Trump Hotel Las Vegas charges $35 per night multiplied by 1,282 rooms which brings in $44,870 every day. Though the Trump Organization does not directly own the Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles, Florida, I would assume the Trump family profits when the hotel profits. Speaking of profits, the hotel has a $30 per night resort fee and 356 rooms so that is $10,680 per day.
What percentage of rooms in Trump Organization Hotels (the hotels directly owned by the Trump family) have resort fees? Well the DC hotel with 263 rooms has no resort fees and there are no resort fees at Hawaii’s Trump International Hotel Waikiki at 462 rooms. The Chicago Trump Hotel has no resort fees and there are 339 rooms. The Albemarle Estate at Trump Winery with 10 rooms and New York’s Trump International Hotel and Tower at 167 rooms also have no fees. That’s a total of 1,241 resort fee free rooms at Trump Organization hotels. That said, the Las Vegas and Miami hotels are their two biggest and both of those charge resort fees. The Doral Miami has 742 rooms and the Las Vegas hotel has 1,282 rooms. So total that is 2,024 rooms where the Trump family is directly profiting from charging resort fees. So they charge resort fees in 2,024 rooms and they have no resort fees in 1,241 rooms. That means 61.3% of Trump Organization hotel rooms charge hotel resort fees. This is not even taking into account licensed Trump hotels not directly owned by the Trump Organization, like the Sunny Isles Trump Hotel in Florida which also charges resort fees.
With the three hotels, two directly owned by the family and one licensed to carry the Trump name, that’s $18,550 + $44,870 + $10,680 = $74,100 per day. It’s a lot of money for the President of the United States to be making based on an illegal, deceptive fee. That said, the Trump family is clearly not the ones leading this hotel scam. They could charge resort fees at all their properties if they wanted to but they really do limit the hotels charging resort fees to those where truly every hotel in the area is already charging them. Even in some locations, like their hotel in Hawaii where almost all hotels do now charge resort fee, the Trump International Hotel Waikiki still does not charge a resort fee.
Summary: It’s a bad look for the President of the United States and his family to be profiting from these illegal hotel fees but the Trump Organization is certainly not the leaders of the hotel resort fee push His hotel competition of MGM, Caesars, Marriott and Hilton have been far more aggressive and shameless in using fees to lie about room rates. Seeing as the Trump Organization is not aggressively using fees to lie about room rates, perhaps he is waiting for the FTC to make hotel pricing one transparent price so that the Trump Hotels can get back to advertising just one hotel room rate.
You cannot see the resort fee unless you click the Details drop down under Taxes and Fees
At Trump Hotels resort fees are only displayed before purchase if a guest selects the Details drop down under Taxes and Fees. Both screenshots are from the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas.