Price Index
The Boston Night Cost Index measures what one night in a Boston hotel actually costs, from the advertised room rate through to the amount that leaves your account. It is a fixed basket, measured the same way every month, published in full, and set to base 100 in January 2025 — the cheapest month of the series.
The basket has three components and does not change: the market average room rate for the month, the three statutory lodging taxes that apply in the city (5.7% state, 6.5% city, 2.75% convention centre financing fee, 14.95% in total), and one 24-hour space in a downtown garage. Room rates come from the monthly hotel performance series published for the Boston market; the tax rates come from Massachusetts and City of Boston statute; the parking rate comes from the published municipal garage schedule. Every figure carries its source and its period on the methodology page.
Two things it is not. It is not a rate checker — it measures the market, not the room you are about to reserve. And it is not an estimate: where a number does not exist, the cell stays empty and we say so. The reference series we validate against has a hole in October 2025 because of the federal funding lapse that month, and we show that hole rather than smoothing over it.
These figures are free to reuse. Quote them, chart them, build on them — all we ask is a link back to this page. The detailed reference list behind each reading is available on request.
Spotlight
Why a hotel media publishes a price index
Anyone can tell you Boston is expensive. Very few can tell you by how much, in which month, and compared with what. That gap is the reason this index exists. A room rate on its own is not a price: it becomes a price once tax is applied and once the things you cannot avoid — parking, in this city — are added. The index measures that total, and it measures it the same way every month so that the movement means something.
The 2025 series makes the point plainly. In January the basket costs $261.76. In October it costs $482.24, an increase of 84%. The room rate alone rises further, by 98.5%, and the difference between those two figures is itself the finding: the parking component is flat, so it dilutes the swing. A visitor who compares only advertised rates overstates how much the season actually costs them. The tax, being proportional, does the opposite — it amplifies. In January it adds $29.10 to the bill, in October $57.78.
Against the national picture, Boston is an outlier rather than an example. Across the months available in 2025, the United States lodging price index moves within a band of about 19 percentage points from its lowest to its highest month. Boston's room rate moves 98.5 points across the same year — more than five times the national amplitude. Over the longer run the gap is smaller but still there: Boston's average room rate is 15.6% above its 2019 level, where the national lodging index is 11.9% above its own.
The index will be republished as each new month of market data becomes available, on the same basket and the same base. When the basket has to change, that will be a break in the series and it will be labelled as one, not quietly absorbed. The first reading produces no year-on-year movement, and we would rather say that than pretend to a history we do not have.