(Photo by Richard Graulich/The Palm Beach Post)
While the financial disclosure filed by the former President hours before he left the White House showed overall steep declines in revenue for The Trump Organization’s hospitality holdings, an increase of 13% was shown for the Mar-a-Lago private club and smaller gains were also shown for Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach and Trump National Golf Club & Spa in Jupiter. Steep declines were shown, however, for golf and food-and-beverage revenue at the Doral club and resort in Miami.
Financial disclosure reports filed by former President Donald Trump just hours before he left the White House on January 20th show that his business empire sustained steep declines in revenue last year, The Palm Beach Post reported, with the exception of three bright spots—the Mar-a-Lago estate and private club and two golf clubs in Palm Beach County, Fla.
The 79-page report lays out in detail the toll the pandemic has taken on the Trump Organization’s luxury hospitality empire, The Post reported. Overall, the Trump Organization declared revenue of at least $278 million in 2020 and the early days of 2021, a nearly 38% decline from the company’s reported 2019 results.
Mar-a-Lago, the oceanfront estate and private club that the Trump family now calls home and shares with 500 members, was among the few Trump businesses that saw revenue gains, The Post reported. Revenues there increased 13%, from $21.4 million to $24.2 million, according to the report.
Despite the gain, revenue at the club is still far lower than it was when then-candidate Trump filed his first financial disclosure report in May 2016, The Post reported. In that report, revenue of $29.7 million was shown.
Trump international Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. showed a modest 4.7% increase in revenue in 2020, from $12.6 million to $13.2 million, the report showed. And Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Fla. also showed a small increase in revenue — from $392,293 to $422,234.
Farther south in Florida, The Post reported, The Trump Organization’s Doral golf club and resort in Miami mirrored the devastating financial toll the pandemic has taken on the luxury hospitality industry, which effectively ground to a halt last spring when the coronavirus began spreading across the nation.
Golf resort revenue at the Doral property plummeted from $77.2 million in 2019 to $44.1 million in 2020, the report showed. Food-and-beverage sales also sustained a dramatic drop, from $5.5 million to $1.6 million.
Although the report paints an overall dismal view of Trump’s finances at the end of his term, The Post reported, it provides no numbers on expenses, which also likely dropped because of pandemic-related staff cuts. More than 1,000 workers lost jobs at Trump properties in South Florida, including 153 at Mar-a-Lago.
Among the worst hit of the family’s businesses was The Trump Organization’s signature hotel in Washington, D.C., just blocks from the White House. The five-star hotel—whose lobby was dubbed “America’s living room” for the cadre of politicians, diplomats and power-brokers it attracted—saw a 63% drop in revenue, The Post reported.
The report also references, but not in detail, several hundred million dollars worth of loans that Trump has personally guaranteed and that come due in the next four years, The Post reported.
The details of Trump’s overall financial decline last year are among the unfavorable events that have dogged the former President in his first week out of office, The Post reported. On January 24th, sky banners were flown over a beach near Mar-a-Lago calling the former President a “pathetic loser” and “the worst president ever.”
Although Donald Trump was reportedly at his golf club in West Palm Beach when the planes flew by, it was hard to avoid news of the high-altitude trolling, The Post reported, as social media brimmed with posts of videos and photos of the banners fluttering against a blue sky.
On January 25th, The Post reported, the former President also lost some of the prominence afforded the most powerful leader in the world when his security detail was slimmed and the road in front of Mar-a-Lago was opened to traffic.
Gone were the barricades that closed the road, dogs that sniffed vehicles and Secret Service agents armed with assault weapons standing guard outside the south entrance to the club. Gone, too, were the throngs of supporters who once cheered then-President Trump as his motorcade drove slowly by on Southern Boulevard during the former president’s visits to his golf club.
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