The right answer depends entirely on what the trip is actually for, and guests who get this wrong usually didn’t ask the question early enough to plan around it.
When the City Wins
A meeting-heavy visit usually favours a central hotel, even at a time cost on arrival. Less time in transit across the whole stay adds up to more than the extra twenty minutes from the airport on day one — especially across three or four days of back-to-back meetings.
Being central also means evenings have options. Dinner, a walk, somewhere to be after work ends — all of that is harder to justify from a hotel that requires a taxi just to reach anything.
When Proximity to the Airport Wins
A trip built around a single early flight, or a tight connection, flips the calculation entirely. Proximity to the airport starts to matter more than anything else once the whole visit is essentially one meeting and a flight either side of it.
The mistake to avoid is optimising for the wrong trip. A single overnight before an early departure doesn’t need a central hotel; a four-day conference does. Matching the choice to the actual shape of the trip — not habit, not whichever hotel is easiest to book — is what separates a smooth stay from an unnecessarily long one.