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WHEN EDUARDO KURMAN went online from his home in Argentina to book room reservations for a nine-day trip to a Manhattan hotel, he was satisfied with the threestar establishment he found. It wasn't until he got to town and discovered that the hotel he had been promised was actually an apartment building and his comfortable quarters were a roach-infested unit with no heat that he realized he had been had.
Mr. Kurman is not alone. As New York's busiest tourist season gets under way, unsuspecting visitors from around the world are showing up at their "hotels" only to find they are apartment buildings, with rooms that frequently lack even the barest essentials.
They are victims of an overheated tourism market and unscrupulous landlords. With hotel occupancy rates in New York City at 89% and the average cost of a New York hotel room nearing $250 a night, more and more landlords are taking advantage of the situation. They are illegally marketing their rental apartments as hotel rooms for stays as short as one night.
On online travel forums such as TripAdvisor.com, the number of complaints from outraged tourists is soaring. Meanwhile, residents of as many as 70 Manhattan apartment towers...