Gov. Maura Healey said thousands of dollars spent by her office with taxpayer-funded credit cards on stays at four and five-star hotels across the world last fiscal year were an “appropriate expenditure.”

Healey has traveled across the country and world multiple times during her first two years in office, often to meet with other political or business leaders. Procurement card expenses reviewed by the Herald showed her office stayed at high-end hotels multiple times during those trips.

At an unrelated event Thursday afternoon, Healey defended her choice of hotels.

“We don’t pick the location when we go to a place like Quebec. That’s something that the host community designates. So it is what it is,” she told reporters. “It’s an appropriate expenditure. I think people understand that.”

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Healey charged $2,500 in September 2023 to a procurement card for lodging at the Le Chateau Frontenac as part of her trip to the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers Conference, according to state data.

A spokesperson for the governor previously said Healey stayed at the luxury hotel with Chief of Staff Kate Cook and an executive assistant because that was where “the conference was held.”

During a trip to Rome, Healey and her staff stayed at the four-star Marriott Le Meridien Visconti near the Vatican, her office said. The trip cost more than $30,000 in public funds, of which $14,000 was spent on the hotel, according to procurement card data from the Office of the Comptroller.

The trip to Rome, where Healey had an audience with Pope Francis, was paid for with funds from the Massachusetts Tourism Trust Fund, a multi-million dollar account used to promote tourism in the state that is seeded with public dollars.

At the State House, Healey said she went to Italy at the invitation of Pope Francis for a climate summit, something she was “not going to turn down.”

“That was an important climate summit, and we were very honored to go,” she said. “When we went up to Quebec, that was at the invitation of the Atlantic Canadian governors. We’re going to be hosting them in September. These kinds of trade alliances, geopolitical alliances, are really important and I’m proud that we were able to go.”