If he loses the election in November—an outcome that looks increasingly likely by the day—Donald Trump will still have a vast business empire to return to, with business holdings and luxury hotel properties dotting the globe, almost all of them prominently bearing his name.
No property has gotten more attention in recent months than his new Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., a luxury hotel situated right on Pennsylvania Avenue, less than half a mile from the White House.
“It’s gonna be the best hotel in Washington, D.C.,” he said earlier this month. “The most highly sought-after project…We got it. People were shocked, Trump got it.”
Now, Travel & Leisure is reporting that Trump Hotels are facing a branding crisis, thanks in large part to their namesake’s penchant for racism, misogyny and generally cavalier attitude towards the truth. Bookings at Trump properties have fallen precipitously in 2016, according to a group that monitors hotel occupancy rates. And last month came word that Trump Hotels’ newest series of expensive “lifestyle” brand hotels would forego the name “Trump” entirely.
Instead, the hotels will be called Scion, “a nod,” says Trump Hotels CEO Eric Danziger, “to the Trump family and to the tremendous success it has had with its businesses.”
Trump Hotels disputes any notion that their decision to downplay Donald Trump’s visibility on future hotel properties has anything to do with the candidate’s self-immolating campaign, but as New York Magazine notes, Trump’s marquee properties are having a hard time booking guests.
Earlier this month, dignitaries from around the world traveled to the nation’s capital for annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF. Washington, DC’s five-star hotels were sold out for months in advance, charging in excess of $1000 a night for some of their fanciest suites.
For all the stragglers and last-minute invitees, there was Trump International, which was forced to cut their rates well below market value and still didn’t sell out.
Diminished expectations is becoming a theme for Trump’s D.C. hotel. CNN Money last week reported that event planners and travel agents are purposefully avoiding the hotel altogether.
“I’m not recommending the Trump property to anyone,” Tara Melvin, the owner of Virginia-based Perfect Planning Events, told CNN. “Just based on his character, and his actions and the things that he said over his political campaign.”
Activists have already defaced the building once, writing “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice, No Peace” in graffiti on the building’s marble exterior. And two of D.C.’s most prominent restauranteurs scrapped planned properties to be housed inside the hotel, citing Trump’s radicalism.
Perhaps his falling fortunes are why Trump himself used the spotlight afforded him during the first two presidential debates to hawk his newest hotel, to a combined television audience of more than 150 million people.