Hotel for President Obama's Ethiopia Visit Cost $412K

     President Obama visited Kenya and Ethiopia during his recent trip to Africa, and the hotel bill for the president and his entourage totaled approximately $412,390.86 for the Ethiopia stay alone. A contract with the Hilton in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa was posted online Tuesday:

     The president arrived in Addis Ababa on Sunday, July 26 and departed on July 28. The government also spent $7,540 for cell phones for the president's Ethiopia visit. The White House did not respond to a request for an explanation.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Biden's Hotel Bill for Turkey Visit: $625K

    Vice President Joe Biden just returned Sunday from a three-nation trip that concluded with a 48 hour visit to Turkey. The vice president, his wife, and his entourage arrived in Turkey via Ukraine Friday evening around 7:30 local time for meetings with President Erdogan  and other government officials. Biden departed for Washington, DC Sunday after meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The stay in Turkey alone racked up a hotel bill of approximately $624,734.
    The notice of the hotel contract was posted online uncharacteristically quickly, appearing on the very day of Biden's departure from Turkey. The documents called for 200 rooms and one large conference room at the Hilton Harbiye in Istanbul:

    Numerous other hotels were considered but not deemed suitable due to various reasons including lack of sufficient rooms, distance from planned events, and even ongoing renovations at one facility.
    Documents related to lodging for the the Moroccan and Ukrainian legs of Biden's trip have not yet been posted.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

$908K for Vehicles for Biden's World Cup Trip--On Top of $2.2M for Hotels

    Vice President Biden's trip to Brazil in mid-June for the USA versus Ghana World Cup game and meetings the following day with the president and vice president of Brazil required rental of vehicles for Biden and his entourage costing over $900,000.  Added to the $2.2 million cost of hotels we reported a few weeks ago, the total costs of local lodging and transportation for the trip topped $3.1 million.
    The documents indicate two companies were used for vehicles and drivers:

    The $908,147 estimate far outstrips the $321,665 spent in February 2013 for a vice presidential trip to Paris. The documents for the World Cup trip do not contain enough details to explain why the cost for this trip is comparatively high, but asserts that the "anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable" and that the rates are comparable to "the rates charged for similar services during this season." The documents that accompanied the Brazil hotel contract posting noted that due to the World Cup, hotel rates were up anywhere from 75 to 365 percent, but a similar statement is not included in the vehicle documents.
    The State Department, the agency that handles arrangements for VIP trips, explained the reasons for the short notice and lack of full competition in awarding the contracts:

Security and logistics are the Department of State’s primary considerations when procuring vehicles rental. The Department of State must be able to provide a safe and secure vendor for VIP visitors. Frequently VIP visits are not announced or confirmed in sufficient time to conduct a competition, creating an urgent and compelling need.

    The two companies chosen were able to handle communications requirements and were accommodating to the security needs of the vice president's entourage.


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

President Obama's Second $1.5M Brussels Hotel Bill in Less Than Three Months

    In late March of this year, President Obama stayed in Brussels, Belgium for about 24 hours on a weeklong trip through Europe.  Lodging at The Hotel in Brussels cost $1.5 million, as we reported in April, including rooms for the president and his entourage, as well as for the advance team in the weeks preceding the visit.
    Less than two and a half months later, President Obama returned to Brussels again for about 24 hours for a G-7 meeting in early June, once again stayed at The Hotel, and again incurred a cost of $1.5 million.  This time, the documents cited a need for "399 Lodging Rooms, office rooms, and conference rooms from 5/22/2014 – 6/6/2014":

    For the same trip, a contract for over $1 million for rental vehicles was posted as well.  The contract covered an "[e]stimated 141 Rental Vehicles from 5/20/2014 – 6/7/2014."

    The rental vehicles are in addition to the vehicles that accompany the president on all his trips, including The Beast, the president's armored limousine.


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Michelle Obama 2-Day Hotel Stay in China Costs $222K

    Michelle Obama wrapped up her March visit to China with a stop in Chengdu, arriving on Tuesday, March 25 and departing for the United States on the following day.  But that one leg of the trip alone required about 900 room nights, ranging from 21 rooms beginning on March 13 for the advance team to a peak of 144 rooms when the first lady herself was at the hotel.

    The documents prepared in support of the stay estimated the cost at around 1,393,500 yuan (RMB), or $222,000 at current exchange rates:

    According to the documents, one of the factors in choosing the Shangri-La Hotel was a security consideration that "will allow party to occupy the entire top two floors for the visit."

    The documents also state that the local Ritz-Carlton had expressed interest in hosting the first lady, but...

in preliminary price comparisons, the cost was sufficiently more than the Shangri-La. We requested a price reduction but a great cost difference remained for the both the Executive Junior Suites, that will serve as control rooms, and the Presidential Suite.

    The cost of the first lady's hotel room for the Beijing portion of her trip, reportedly $8,400/night, raised some eyebrows at the time.  As THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported, the prices of the Westin Chaoyang Hotel where Mrs. Obama and her group stayed had been deemed "prohibitive" for Vice President Biden's trip to China in December 2013.
    So far, the documents for the Chengdu portion of Mrs. Obama's trip are the only ones that have been posted online by the State Department.  Mrs. Obama was in China March 19-26.


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

$1.5M Hotel Contract for President's One-Day Visit to Brussels

    In late March, President Obama took a week-long trip through Europe which included a stop of less than 24 hours in Brussels, Belgium for meetings with the European Union and NATO.  The president stayed at The Hotel, a twenty-seven story hotel in the center of the city.  The estimated cost for the president's stay, including about two weeks for an advance team, was $1,522,646.36.

    Despite reports that the president travelled with an entourage of 900, the Justification and Approval documents only indicate a need for "283 Lodging Rooms."  However, sometimes more than one hotel is used during VIP trips.  For instance, when the president travelled to South Africa for Nelson Mandela's funeral, five different hotels were used.

    Contracts for lodging have not yet been posted for the president's other stops during his European trip which included the Netherlands and Rome, Italy.


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

U.S. Delegation to Mandela Funeral: Five Hotels, Transportation Cost $19M

    Documents recently released by the government show that the value of hotels and local transportation contracts for the U.S. delegation to Nelson Mandela's funeral in December were considerably higher than previous estimates.  On December 19, THE WEEKLY STANDARD first reported the cost at about $11 million. However, rather than two hotels and one vehicle contractor, additional contracts have been disclosed bringing the total to five hotels and two vehicle contractors.
    The transportation contracts include passenger vehicles, SUVs, vans, buses, pickup trucks, box trucks, and "larger capacity vehicles," but do not include the cost of travelling from the U.S. to South Africa and back.  The combined total estimated cost of the two contracts is $12,521,851.
     The five hotel contracts estimated a total of 10,275 "lodging room nights" spanning December 6, 2013 to January 20, 2014.  The Johannesburg-area hotels include the Radison Blu Sandton, Radison Gautrain, Holiday Inn, Park Inn, and the Michaelangelo.  A sixth contract for the DaVinci hotel was subsequently canceled.  The total estimated cost of the remaining contracts is $6,489,627.  Adding the $12.5 million in transportation contracts brings the grand total for lodging and local transportation to $19,011,478.
   When asked for an explanation of the 6-week date range of December 6 to January 20 for the hotels, a State Department official replied via email:

Due to high demand during that time period, all hotels in the area had a requirement to book for a minimum of 15 nights.   The date span was written into the contract to give flexibility, but we did not pay for 45 days.

    When asked to explain why 45 days was written into the estimates when only a 15 day minimum was required, the official did not respond, nor was there any response to a follow up inquiry about how accurate the cost estimates turned out to be.


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Vice President Biden's $583K Shangri-la Hotel Bill in Singapore

    Vice President Joe Biden's $585,000 hotel bill for a Paris visit early in 2013 focused a lot of attention on the issue of the high cost of VIP travel.  Even as Biden is currently on a swing through the Far East, the State Department has posted a $583,000 contract with the Shangri-la Hotel in Singapore for the vice president's three-day/two-night stay this past July, his most recent Far East visit.  Though the online Justification and Approval document is somewhat poor quality, it indicates a need for a hotel "to host a VIP visit of over 250 guests at during the principal's visit," the "principal" in this case being the vice president:

    Not all such contracts for VIP travel expenses are released by the government, although when they come, the releases always lag behind the trip dates for security reasons.  Security concerns are also the reason for the lack of "full and open competition" that is often required on government contracts.  When asked for comment regarding the requirements of posting travel-related contracts, a State Department spokesperson responded via email:

Federal acquisition requirements for posting contract awards related to Presidential and Vice Presidential Travel to FedBiz Ops are that any contract for more than $150,000 should be posted within 30 days of the contract award date. 

    The above contract was awarded on July 18, 2013, but was not posted until December 4, 2013, which amounts to 139 days.  When asked to comment regarding the delay in posting this and other such contracts, the spokesperson replied:

The Department takes our obligations under the Transparency Act very seriously, and strives for complete, timely reporting from all of our missions worldwide.

Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard. 

Vice President Biden's $245,000 Hotel Bill in Trinidad and Tobago

    Vice President Biden spent only about 20 hours in Trinidad and Tobago on his recent six day trip through South America and the Caribbean, but the hotel bill for the vice president, his entourage and the advance team came in at about $245,000 for an estimated 1,134 room nights.  As is typically the case with VIP travel, the contract was awarded without the usual "full and open competition" due to security and logistical concerns:

    An interesting note in the justification and approval documentation indicated the reasons why the Hyatt was chosen over the somewhat less expensive Hilton:

Hilton Hotel Trinidad – did not have enough rooms available to accommodate the advance and the traveling party.  Additionally, this visit would have conflicted with the state visit of the President of the People’s Republic of China, staying at this hotel.

    Contracts for lodging for the longer Colombian and Brazilian legs of the vice president's trip have not yet surfaced.

Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

High Cost of VIP Travel: Biden's $665,545 Hotel Bill in Moscow, Obama's $450,000 Warsaw Tab

    The Washington Times reports that the cost of President Obama's Africa trip, estimated as high as $100 million, is overshadowing President Obama's agenda.  If past trips are any indication, lodging and local transportation would represent only a fraction of $100 million, yet those costs would likely dwarf those of the average citizen traveling abroad.  Revelations in late March of Vice President Joe Biden's $321,000 limo bill and $585,000 Paris hotel bill for his trip to Europe earlier this year caused a stir even among veteran White House observers such as CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
    While the amounts spent were deemed fairly ordinary by current and former government insiders, the fact that the closely-held information was found on a publicly available government website had some speculating that perhaps the postings had been inadvertent.  However, further investigation has revealed that the information is not as rare as previously supposed.
    For example, Vice President Biden's trip to Moscow in 2011.  The contract was awarded to the Moscow Ritz-Carlton on February 24, 2011 and , according to the accompanying Justification and Approval (J&A), the estimated cost for 1,778 room nights was $665,545.  As has been noted before, contracts for travel for high level government officials are not subject to the same requirements for competitive bidding as other government contracts due to security concerns:

The vice president's visit to Moscow lasted two days and was said to focus on economic issues and missile defense concerns.

    Although Vice President Biden's foreign travel costs have received most of the attention lately, some details for at least two of President Obama's trips from his first term are available online.  The first was a trip to Warsaw, Poland in May 2011.  The J&A estimated the cost for 2,114 lodging room/nights at the Warsaw Marriott at $450,000.  Due to the special needs of the president and his entourage, the costs included extras such as "Removal and storage of furniture from standard rooms":

The stop in Poland was part of a week-long swing through Europe that included stays in Ireland, Great Britain, and France.  Details of lodging arrangements for the other stops on the trip were not available  The president spent one night in Warsaw. 

    Details of an earlier presidential trip to Prague in 2010 are also available.  At $163,000, the Prague contract  with Marriott initially appears to be a bargain compared to other trips.  However, a closer look shows that the Marriott was being used "simultaneously with the Hotel Hilton (which was the main hotel for the event...)"  The J&A for the Marriott was for only 287 nights (with more than 40 late check-out fees), but also included rentals of three plasma TVs, a pin-board, and a FAX machine:

    The contract for the main hotel, the Hilton, were not found on the website.  The president spent one night in Prague.

    Lodging and transportation costs for First Lady Michelle Obama's ill-fated trip to Copenhagen in 2009 to bolster Chicago's bid to host the Olympics were found online as well.  The costs for this trip have already garnered some attention after it took the State Department 26 months to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch.  While the documentation finally released to Judicial Watch was fairly extensive, it turns out at least some of the information was posted at FBO.GOV as early as November 25, 2009.  According to the J&A (Justification and Approval), the estimated cost for 103 rooms at the Scandic Copenhagen hotel was $430,285.70:

    On January 19, 2010, a contract for the same trip was posted for vehicles & buses provided by Copenhagen Limousine Service for $200,629.  According to the J&A, the trip included a possible visit from the president as well.  The document also includes some interesting insights about the scheduling of such trips and the security-related restrictions (and related increased costs) that are imposed in these cases:

    The president did end up traveling to Copenhagen to join his wife in her efforts and to address the International Olympic Committee, but arrived in Copenhagen and returned to Washington on the same day, Friday, October 2, 2009.  The first lady spent two nights in Copenhagen, arriving on Wednesday of that week and departing to Washington with her husband on Friday.


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

President Obama's $2.5M Hotel and 'Vehicle Rental' Tab on Last Mexico Trip

    As the White House first announced in March, Barack Obama is scheduled to visit Mexico and Costa Rica later this week. The trip is billed as "an important opportunity to reinforce the deep cultural, familial, and economic ties that so many Americans share with Mexico and Central America." And at yesterday’s White House press conference, the president stated that he is "very much looking forward to taking the trip down to Mexico" this week.

    But the trip won’t exactly be cheap for taxpayers, assuming the costs mirror those incurred by the American taxpayers for President Obama's last trip to Mexico, for the G-20 summit in June 2012. According to recently discovered documents relating to the costs of that trip, taxpayers paid nearly $2.5 million for hotel and “vehicle rental.”

    The first government document is a contract with a travel agent for the hotels required for the president's delegation and entourage for the conference:

    The accompanying Justification and Approval (J&A) document estimates the total cost at $1,889,388.60, with a maximum payout of $2,078,327.46.  The document does not give details concerning the number of rooms or other special requirements.  It notes the usual security concerns and time constraints that apply to such VIP trips, but also lists this additional restriction imposed by the Mexican government:

    The second document relates to transportation needs for the presidential delegation for the G-20 visit.   The J&A accompanying this contract estimates the cost of transportation-vehicle rental at $630,760.00 with a maximum of $693,836.00, and also notes that the same company, Operadora Transtur, which had been contracted for an earlier visit to Los Cabos by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and was the best value:

     Both contracts were approved in late May 2012, a few weeks before the trip, but were not posted on the fbo.gov website until more recently. Although members of the president's travel party arrived in advance of the president and departed later, President Obama himself stayed in Mexico two nights.

    Regarding the president's upcoming trip, the Washington Examiner reported that there has been some speculation that the true motives for the trip may revolve more around the president's push for immigration reform.  And at a White House meeting on Monday with Latino leaders, President Obama discussed his upcoming trip to Mexico and Costa Rica.  The readout of the meeting provided by the White House concluded with, "At the meeting, the President made clear that immigration reform continues to be a top legislative priority this year."


Note:  This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Vice President Biden's One-Night Paris Hotel Tab: $585,000.50

    As it turns out, Vice President Joe Biden's London stay in February was not the most expensive part of his trip.  A government document released on February 14, 2013 shows that the contract for the Hotel Intercontinental Paris Le Grand came in at $585,000.50.

    The documentation for this contract is not as detailed as the London one, so the cost per room is not available.  However, just as the Hyatt Regency in London, the Hotel Intercontinental Paris Le Grand is a five star hotel.  Again, security concerns prevent these type of contracts from being open to bidding, but if the government was able to do some comparison shopping, the Hotel Intercontinental has a special offer.  "Find a lower price elsewhere and your first night is free."  The Vice President stayed in Paris for one night.


Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Vice President Biden's $459,388.65 Hotel Bill

    Vice President Biden and his entourage spent a little time in London in early February during his first foreign trip of the second term of the Obama administration.  A document released today revealed that the cost of lodging in London alone was close to half a million dollars.  The contract was awarded on January 30, 2013 to the Hyatt Regency London for a total of $459,388.65.

 
    Due to obvious security concerns, such contracts are not open to the competitive bidding normally required on government contracts.  The accompanying document justifying the "sole source" contract notes that the vice president's group required "approximately 136 hotel rooms for 893 room nights."  Based on these figures and the total contract price, each hotel room at the five star hotel cost the US government about $500 per night.


Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.