Rehoboth Beach hotels are more than 75 percent booked for summer season

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. – Despite the summer season being months away, the Rehoboth & Dewey Beach Area Chamber of Commerce says hotel rooms for popular weekend dates are already 75 percent sold out across the nearly 1,100 hotel rooms on the boardwalk of Rehoboth Beach.

Rehoboth Beach Chamber of Commerce president Carol Everhart says hotels across the town, and especially on the water- are selling out at a pace they’d usually expect in June.

“This year they are booking way in advance and it’s something we haven’t seen before,” she said adding that for every overnight visitor the town expects around 200 dollars in revenue per night.

The trend of earlier bookings could be explained by higher prices, says Vice President of Operations for TKO Hospitality Drew DiFonzo, who operates the Hyatt Place in Dewey Beach along with 6 other beach-market hotels.

“The market in general our hotels included have been able to charge a much higher rate than pre-Covid and that has been changing consumer behavior because people think they have to book earlier in order to get a better deal,” he said adding “Demand has been extremely high in pace has been high in comparison even in comparison to a very strong 2022, we manage 7 hotels in the beach markets and as of right now our reservations are exceeding our record-breaking year.”

Everhart tells 47ABC that’s despite a dip in January-March sales of hotel rooms, which she says slightly dipped below the 2022 numbers. She tells us despite that dip the early sales could set the town up for over 10 million visitors this summer.

DiFonzo tells 47ABC that added attention also helps increase investment and development of new hotels in the area, looking to capitalize on the visitors flocking to the region, in addition to the 3 projects currently in construction on Rehoboth Avenue.