My last 2 stays in the DC area (1 Hampton, 1 HGI) required that I pay for parking directly via my phone through Parking Management Corporation.

The Hampton used to have free parking, and now they're charging a $10/night "because we can" fee. The HGI is in a suburban office park area with plenty of open parking everywhere so I'm assuming it's also a "because we can" tactic.

And PMC is very proactive about monitoring--first night I arrived I forgot to pay and had a "reminder" note on my car the next morning. I also noted another car with a similar note, plus a brightly colored TOW sign on the windshield.

Aside from the blatant price gouging, I lose points because the parking is not part of the hotel folio.

Is this a growing trend where the property simply outsources the parking operation to PMC and just sits back a gets a cut of the profit?