Milwaukee’s hotel market combines a 19,899-room Greater Milwaukee Area inventory with a convention-centered downtown supply and a large tourism economy. The available figures span the Milwaukee Hotel Fact Sheet 2025, year-to-date Q3 2023 operating results, 2018–2024 competitive-set history, August 2025 performance, and 2024–2026 tourism reports. Because these sources use different periods and geographies, the measurements below are kept distinct.
On this page
- Hotel inventory across the Milwaukee area
- Downtown and convention-center room supply
- Occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR
- Competitive-set performance from 2018 through August 2025
- Hotel segments and property age near the Baird Center
- Tourism demand and economic impact
Hotel inventory across the Milwaukee area
The Milwaukee Hotel Fact Sheet 2025 reports 19,899 hotel rooms across 190 properties in the Greater Milwaukee Area. That broad inventory includes three distinct groupings: 6,018 downtown rooms across 37 properties, 3,644 airport-area rooms across 40 properties, and 10,237 outlying and resort rooms across 113 properties.
The downtown total is divided by distance from the convention center. Hotels within one-half mile account for 3,871 rooms across 18 properties. Hotels outside one-half mile account for another 2,147 rooms across 19 properties. Together, those two groups make up the 6,018-room downtown inventory reported by the fact sheet.
The geography matters when comparing hotel statistics. A downtown count describes the convention and central-city supply, while the Greater Milwaukee Area figure includes airport-area, outlying, and resort properties. These are inventory counts, not occupied rooms or annual room nights.
The same Milwaukee Hotel Fact Sheet 2025 identifies several of the largest listed properties. Hilton Milwaukee has 729 rooms, Potawatomi Hotel & Casino has 500, Hyatt Regency Milwaukee Downtown has 481, The Pfister Hotel has 307, and DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Milwaukee has 243 rooms.
| Listed property | Rooms |
|---|---|
| Hilton Milwaukee | 729 |
| Potawatomi Hotel & Casino | 500 |
| Hyatt Regency Milwaukee Downtown | 481 |
| The Pfister Hotel | 307 |
| DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Milwaukee | 243 |
These property figures are individual room counts within the broader inventory totals. They should not be added to one another as a substitute for the full market inventory because the fact sheet’s area groupings contain many additional hotels.
Downtown and convention-center room supply
The connected convention-center hotel cluster contains 1,365 rooms, according to the Milwaukee Hotel Fact Sheet 2025. Its named components include Hilton Milwaukee City Center with 729 rooms, Hyatt Regency Milwaukee with 481 rooms, and SpringHill Suites Milwaukee Downtown with 155 rooms. Those three counts sum to the stated cluster total.
The Wisconsin Center District Highest & Best Use Report provides a separate near-venue view: 6,145 existing hotel rooms are located within two miles of the Baird Center across 44 hotels. This two-mile supply is broader than the connected cluster and uses a different boundary from the downtown fact-sheet categories.
The Baird Center, Panther Arena, and Miller High Life Theatre attracted 1.9 visits in 2025, as reported by the Wisconsin Center District Highest & Best Use Report. In that report’s competitive hotel set, the available supply is 2,335 hotel rooms per night. Hilton Milwaukee is the largest property in that set at 729 rooms, followed by Hyatt Regency at 481 rooms.
The report also states that Hilton Milwaukee will rebrand 175 rooms as The Marc in early 2026. That is a planned brand change affecting part of the property and should not be interpreted as a change to the entire 729-room count.
Occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR
The Milwaukee Hotel Fact Sheet 2025 reports year-to-date operating measures through Q3 2023 for both Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee. County hotel occupancy was 59.5%, with a year-over-year increase of 1.7%. County average daily rate, or ADR, was $137.23, up 8.7% year over year. County RevPAR, or revenue per available room, was $81.66, up 10.5% year over year.
The city-level figures were higher in each of those reported measures. City of Milwaukee occupancy was 60.3% year to date in Q3 2023, an increase of 4.1% year over year. City ADR was $169.60, up 8.2%, while city RevPAR was $102.34, up 12.6%.
| Market and period | Occupancy | Occupancy change | ADR | ADR change | RevPAR | RevPAR change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Milwaukee County, YTD Q3 2023 | 59.5% | 1.7% | $137.23 | 8.7% | $81.66 | 10.5% |
| City of Milwaukee, YTD Q3 2023 | 60.3% | 4.1% | $169.60 | 8.2% | $102.34 | 12.6% |
Occupancy describes the share of available rooms sold, ADR describes the average daily room rate, and RevPAR combines room revenue with available-room supply. The reported year-over-year changes are supplied comparisons for the Q3 2023 year-to-date period; they are not forecasts for a later year.
Competitive-set performance from 2018 through August 2025
The Wisconsin Center District Highest & Best Use Report tracks a competitive hotel set over time. The set contained 2,129 rooms in 2018, 2,128 rooms in each of 2019 through 2022, 2,266 rooms in 2023, and 2,335 rooms in 2024. In August 2025, the report lists 1,557 rooms for the set and identifies that month’s available room nights separately.
| Year or period | Rooms | Available room nights | Sold room nights | Occupancy | ADR | RevPAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2,129 | 777,085 | 569,129 | 73% | $132 | $96 |
| 2019 | 2,128 | 776,811 | 556,586 | 72% | $138 | $99 |
| 2020 | 2,128 | 776,720 | 231,706 | 30% | $105 | $31 |
| 2021 | 2,128 | 776,720 | 314,382 | 40% | $139 | $56 |
| 2022 | 2,128 | 776,720 | 420,442 | 54% | $152 | $82 |
| 2023 | 2,266 | 827,090 | 488,194 | 59% | $163 | $96 |
| 2024 | 2,335 | 852,275 | 530,242 | 62% | $171 | $106 |
| August 2025 | 1,557 | 568,183 | 353,508 | 62% | $180 | $112 |
The report’s historical series shows the competitive set at 73% occupancy in 2018 and 72% in 2019, followed by 30% in 2020. Occupancy then reached 40% in 2021, 54% in 2022, 59% in 2023, and 62% in 2024. August 2025 also recorded 62% occupancy, with an ADR of $180 and RevPAR of $112.
The room-rate measures changed across the same periods. ADR was $132 in 2018, $138 in 2019, $105 in 2020, $139 in 2021, $152 in 2022, $163 in 2023, and $171 in 2024. The August 2025 ADR was $180. RevPAR moved from $96 in 2018 and $99 in 2019 to $31 in 2020, then rose to $56 in 2021, $82 in 2022, $96 in 2023, $106 in 2024, and $112 in August 2025.
Hotel segments and property age near the Baird Center
Within the two-mile Baird Center supply, the Wisconsin Center District Highest & Best Use Report divides 6,145 rooms among six segments. Upper upscale hotels contain 2,397 rooms, or 39% of supply. Upscale hotels contain 2,202 rooms, or 36%. Luxury hotels contain 438 rooms, or 7%; upper midscale contains 674 rooms, or 11%; midscale contains 191 rooms, or 3%; and economy contains 243 rooms, or 4%.
The average hotel in this two-mile radius opened or was renovated in 2006, and the report gives the average age of the supply as 19 years. Those figures describe the average condition and age profile of the measured hotel supply, not the construction date of every property.
Tourism demand and economic impact
The hotel market sits inside a larger visitor economy. Visit Milwaukee’s “From Top Chef to Top Choice, Milwaukee Tourism Breaks Records in 2024” reports $4.321 billion in total Milwaukee County tourism economic impact in 2024, up 3.7% year over year. Direct visitor spending reached $2.439 billion, or $6.6 million per day, and rose 4.1% year over year.
Tourism supported 28,091 full-time jobs in Milwaukee County in 2024. It generated $242.2 million in state and local tax revenue, while the replacement cost for tourism-supported government services would equal $622 per Milwaukee County household. The county’s tourism impact represented 16.38% of Wisconsin’s total economic impact, including $155 million in year-over-year growth. Total tourism labor income reached $1.402 billion, up 3.4% year over year.
The same Visit Milwaukee report places Greater Milwaukee’s 2024 tourism impact at $6.632 billion, equal to 25.68% of Wisconsin’s total tourism impact. This Greater Milwaukee measure is broader than the Milwaukee County hotel and tourism figures above.
Visit Milwaukee’s “What Tourism Really Means for Milwaukee” reports 22.1 million Milwaukee visitors in 2025, with visitor volume up 7.41% year over year. Milwaukee hotel room nights climbed to 328,000 in 2025, and direct visitor spending reached $2.84 billion. The report also states that visitors account for over 28% of all spending in Milwaukee.
Restaurant spending is another part of that demand picture. Visit Milwaukee’s “Milwaukee’s Flavor Era Powers National Travel & Tourism Week 2026” states that visitor spending accounts for 34% of all restaurant spending in Milwaukee and that the tourism industry supports more than 28,000 Milwaukee families.
The Wisconsin Center District Financial Information reports several tourism-related taxes: a 3% tax on hotel rooms within Milwaukee County, a 3% tax on car rentals originating at General Mitchell International Airport, a 0.5% tax on food and beverage sales within Milwaukee County, and a 7% hotel room tax within the City of Milwaukee.
Visit Milwaukee’s “Visit Milwaukee Announces 2026 Hotel Month to Encourage Winter Travel” reports that the 2026 Hotel Month campaign included more than 30 hotels and 110 participating Milwaukee businesses. Booking offers ran from January 14 through February 28, 2026, with discounts of 15% to 25% off standard nightly rates. These are campaign details for that specified booking period, not typical rates for the full Milwaukee hotel market.