( CNN ) -- Kate Ryan 's fiancé will not let her live down the fact that she chose a hotel for their weekend getaway from Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , to New York based on the teenage drama `` Gossip Girl . '' Ryan , a 26-year-old public relations executive , watches the CW show regularly . Like many viewers this past season , she took notice when the show 's resident bad boy , Chuck Bass , opted to invest in some New York real estate , the very real Empire Hotel on Manhattan 's Upper West Side . `` We walked into the lobby and my fiancé was like , 'Oh , now I know why you wanted to stay here , even though this hotel is in a horrible neighborhood , ' `` Ryan recalled . It is women in their 20s and early 30s , like Ryan , who have built a fan base for `` Gossip Girl '' and who are now driving traffic to the hotel across the street from Lincoln Center . While hotels in New York have been suffering over the past six months because of the nationwide recession and an increase in the supply of hotel rooms in the city , The Empire Hotel has seen a 5 to 10 percent increase in bookings and a 50 percent increase in Web site traffic since September . The marriage between property and television show began last summer when the production company called David Bowd , the president of hotels for Amsterdam Hospitality , which owns the Empire Hotel , and said it was looking for a hotel for location filming and also to include as a quasi-character on the show . `` They were looking at three major competitors of ours at the time , '' Bowd said . `` They finally picked us and I thought it was a great match for the hotel because we already catered to a young , affluent crowd in New York City with our rooftop lounge . '' The show started filming quietly in the hotel 's rooms and lobby over the summer . The hotel made its TV debut at the start of the fall season when Chuck Bass began living and working out of the hotel . Its bright red sign is featured prominently on the show . `` My phone never stopped ringing from folks in the industry asking 'Really ? ' `` Bowd said . `` But I thought it was a great idea . I watched as a woman around 17 years old came to stay at the hotel with her mother . She did n't realize that the show would be filming and she nearly hyperventilated right there in the lobby . '' It is girls like that and women like Ryan who are driving traffic to the hotel these days . That is an invaluable asset as tourist traffic is up and business travel is down . `` I think that teenagers can dictate where their parents stay over vacation and we saw a lot of that over the Thanksgiving holiday and into the bookings for Christmas and New Year 's , '' Bowd said . Alanna Lopez manages the front desk and concierge service for the Empire and said there is no shortage of guest questions about the show during the room booking process . `` The standard questions we get are about how often the cast shoots and when they will be back . A lot of people call just wanting to know if they really shoot here in the hotel or whether they just use the name , and I have to tell them that yes , they really do shoot on location here , '' Lopez said . On site , most of the questions Lopez and her staff are asked do n't come from starstruck teenagers . They come from women Ryan 's age . `` The questions here come from girls in their 20s and 30s . They want to know if Chuck Bass is really as cute as he is on the show and if the girls are actually skinny in person , '' Lopez said . When the show 's stars , Blake Lively , Leighton Meester and Ed Westwick , are at the hotel filming , it is n't unusual for crowds of around 400 people to gather outside the hotel 's entrance on West 63rd Street . The Empire 's boom comes amid an overall decrease in occupancy for hotel rooms throughout the rest of New York . John A . Fox , a senior vice president with PKF , a consulting hotel advisory firm , reviews hotel numbers every day . He noticed an uptick in the Empire 's numbers recently but had not thought to attribute it to the hotel 's guest appearance in a television show . Fox said the rest of New York 's hotels are just starting to put the dark days behind them . Compared to the Empire 's increased sales , occupancy for the city as a whole has been at 81 percent , down 5 points from 86 percent last year . Additionally , room rates have been down , decreasing by around $ 70 last year . The change , Fox said , comes from the replacement of business travelers to the city with the kind of tourists who are flocking to the Empire . `` You can compare it to what 'Sex & the City ' did for the shoes [ of ] Manolo Blahnik , '' said branding expert Todd Brenard of The James Group . `` It increases the awareness of the hotel to a national audience and people who are loyal viewers of the show will want to experience in their lives what they see the characters experiencing . Plus people who are new to New York will already feel like they know the hotel and that is comforting for out-of-town travelers . '' The hotel 's staff has been enjoying capitalizing on its newfound fame . They hired cocktail consultant Somer Perez to concoct a menu of `` Gossip Girl '' -themed cocktails for the property 's rooftop bar and lounge , including the `` I 'm Chuck Bass , '' a mix of Dewar 's Scotch and apple cider that the menu promises will start out sweet and turn sour , much like the character played by Westwick .
New York 's Empire Hotel is regularly featured on the CW 's `` Gossip Girl '' and has been a regular guest star since its debut in 2007. The show 's stars , Blake Lively and Ed Westwick , draw crowds when filming there .