Difficult Year for the Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure Sector, but Reason for Optimism in 2010

Who: Adam Weissenberg, vice chairman and U.S. tourism, hospitality and leisure leader, Deloitte

Details: The U.S. hotel industry welcomed the dawn of 2010. Performance measures in the first half of 2009 were particularly troublesome for many companies, and only in the closing months of the year were there glimmers of hope. By December 2009, a number of major markets started to experience increases in occupancy and revenue per available room (revPAR), following what in some cases has been multi-year, record-breaking declines. In particular, steep price discounting appeared to be a less important strategy in filling rooms. As noted in this report, domestic tourism activity is starting to revive for a few select markets, declines in international travel are lessening and business travel remains mostly stagnant.

"We are seeing signs of a strengthening tourism, hospitality and leisure sector as the economy begins to rebound," said Weissenberg. "Leisure travel has been on the rise and as confidence in the economy is restored, we should see an uptick in business travel, which is one of the key factors on the road to restoring revPAR to pre-recession levels."

In this publication, titled "Hospitality Vision: U.S. Performance Review," we review a ranking of the top-performing U.S. markets and examine key cities with the highest growth in revenue per available room, average daily rate, and occupancy rate.