Priceline Hotel: Impact on West Des Moines 2.5* P/L hotels

[Nautica3]

Folks, the Courtyard by Marriot in West Des Moines/Clive started their remodeling project this week. Found out from talking to the desk clerk that it's suppose to take roughly a month, and they're doing it in phases, starting on the third floor and working down. He also said they've been running very close to 100% capacity lately.

Basically this means that for the next month or so, the CbyM will have only ~65 rooms available instead of ~105. Which means they ought to be sold out, in general. Which means I doubt they'll be offering/accepting Priceline bids during that time, or that those bids will need to be much higher than normal to succeed.

Unfortunately, I also see this spilling over into the rest of the local market, as customers unable to get the CbyM move instead to the Country Inn & Suites (the other main 2.5* P/L hotel around here). Sure, there are some other 2.5* hotels listed on various sites as P/L hotels around here, but I haven't gotten a single successful bid in the past 3-4 months on a 2.5* in WDM that wasn't either the CbyM or the CI&S.

For what it's worth....

Laertes