Question: If DC has more leisure visitors than Boston/Cambridge why are the hotels more expensive & more books for BOS?
I read travel guides (e.g. DK Eyewitness Travel Guides, Frommer’s, Fodor’s) and there are more hotels for a double-room costing more than $ 275 per night for Boston and Cambridge compared to DC, not inclusive of any taxes or fees under the hotel’s control.

I searched for travel books about the two cities, for Boston I found nearly 1,500 books in the travel section on amazon.com, for DC I could only find less than 600. I used all different search terms for DC (e.g. Washington D.C. and Washington DC), and I got much more results with the search term without periods.

If you’re in the mood for answering another question, I recently asked a question why Boston and Cambridge receives more visitors than DC, I currently have two answers. One answer says it’s mostly because of the summer college tours, the other says there are more business visitors in Boston/Cambridge than DC. Neither of those pertain to leisure.

By the way, the question is still active, feel free to answer that question also if you wish:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Anes0ZymOXUnJ4KW735ReSuJDn1G;_ylv=3?qid=20100803093057AAbwK0y

The reason for the hotels being more expensive MIGHT be because of the business visitors, but what about the books? Are there any other reasons why Boston/Cambridge hotels may be more expensive besides business visitors?

I also have another question, sorry I couldn’t fit it in the subject line, even though Boston/Cambridge receive more business visitors than DC, do leisure visitors still significantly account for Boston’s tourism industry?

DC is very family-friendly, but what about Boston?

Also, many travel guides have published a dedicated guide for the New England states (including the city of Boston) because Boston is in a very distinct region of the U.S. Does DC lack being in a distinct U.S. region? When I search for books for the DC region, I find books like “Virginia” and “Maryland and Delaware”. Is New England more notable than “The Capitol region”? If so, why?

For ANY answer, please provide RELIABLE sources. If you absolutely cannot for any of your answers, I’ll still appreciate your answer. Thank you for your support.
(boston family hotels)

Best answer:

Answer by PennyLeeD2
Many of your questions require actual research, so go to your local library or directly contact the tourism boards in Boston and DC. Here on Y!A, you are likely to get more opinions than actual research. My take:

First off, I’m not sure that Boston IS more expensive than DC for hotels. Average daily hotel rate in DC for 2009 was $ 199 with 73% occupancy, for Boston in 2009 it was $ 189.29 with 73% occupancy. (Your links) Your comparison of the rates in travel guides for both cities isn’t a true measure as you don’t know the criteria for inclusion in the guides. You need to compare apples to apples. In addition, you have to take into account business vs leisure hotel rates (which may or may not be reflected in the guide books): I’m paying $ 198 per night for a Foggy Bottom DC hotel in October Tues-Thurs, $ 99 per night Friday-Sunday.

As for guidebooks — again, first you need to get down to apples. On Amazon, you can restrict your search to publication date, travel and format. For travel paperbacks published in 2009, I get 32 for DC, and 48 for Boston. The difference is slightly more Where to Eat books, and some really dry books with Boston in the title. I’d judge that a tie if you take those out. But in general, Boston has a much richer history that does DC, which didn’t exist in the Revolutionary war. Much of DC’s history is that of the US, Boston has its own. The sights people go to DC to see are relatively modern.