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NYC is housing migrants in hotel rooms that it pays for.

Some hotels are charging the city $300 a night.

A billion here, a billion there... pretty soon you're talking real money.

Why does it cost so much? Seems strange that the city is unable to negotiate better rates if these hotels are struggling

Wonder why they don't include AirBnB in that? Oh, yeah, I forgot, they're totally not a hotel, right?

AirBNB is all but banned in NYC.

So the hotels are full of migrants, not tourists, and there are few other options, which further hurts the local economy.

Tourism numbers are rapidly approaching pre-pandemic highs[1], with the main inertia being Asian tourism, not a lack of hotel availability.

The city really shouldn't be attempting to house migrants in midtown Manhattan, but doing so isn't actually appearing to hurt tourism numbers.