There is a shortage of hotels on Boston’s waterfront and it is preventing a planned expansion of Boston Convention & Exhibition Center moving forward.

According to the Boston Globe, the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority released a report stating the need for new hotels in order to get the most use out of the convention center.

Boston falls far behind other cities for the number of hotels within walking distance of a major convention center. As a result, the rate at which the center is being booked has been in decline for the next few years.

The main contributing factor is the lack of hotel space in the nearby vicinity and the extra transportation costs that would be involved to transport visitors from further accommodation.

This issue is also causing problems for the Hynes Convention Center because visitors are booking the hotels in the Back Bay for the BCEC, taking away space from those visiting the Hynes.

David Gibbons, the executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, now hopes to use these findings to persuade officials to build more hotel developments in the area.

Plans to expand the center were put on pause in 2015 because without the necessary nearby accommodation there isn’t enough demand for the project.

It has been suggested that the area will need at least 2,000 new hotel rooms to support further development of the center.

Although several new hotels have opened in South Boston in recent years, two of these do not commit any of their rooms to convention blocks.

In this case developers are hoping for more full-service hotels as the smaller, boutique hotels don’t offer discounted convention rates or offer as many rooms for convention purposes.

Future projects are still being discussed, and no definite development plans have been confirmed.