NASHVILLE, Tennessee – The first day of the sold-out 10th Annual Hotel Data Conference looked at the impact of the past 10 years on the U.S. hotel industry while analysing current trends and forecasting future performance.

Co-hosted by STR and Hotel News Now at the Omni Nashville Hotel, the Hotel Data Conference sold out for the fifth consecutive year with a record 693 attendees.
Isaac Collazo, VP of competitive intelligence at Intercontinental Hotels & Resorts, and Jan Freitag, STR's senior VP of lodging insights, provided an overview of the last 10 years before covering current macroeconomic conditions and performance trends.
"We're in the best demand environment we've ever seen as an industry," Collazo said.

Freitag, while speaking on improving ADR growth, said, "Now we're seeing actually healthy, better than the 30-year average, which is around 2.7%."

Collazo and Freitag also cited several key data points:

  • As of June, occupancy (66.2%) was at its highest rate on a 12-month moving average basis—the previous occupancy peak was in 1994.
  • There have been 100 consecutive months of RevPAR growth (March 2010 through June 2018), with average monthly RevPAR growth at 5.8%.
  • H1 2018 transient demand jumped 2.8%, while group demand was up 2.1%.
  • Three STR-defined U.S. regions account for 60% demand growth: West/South Central, Mid Atlantic and South Atlantic.
  • The largest demand gains have been seen in suburban locations, which made up 27% of the overall growth on a 12-month moving average.
  • 10% of suburban demand came from the West/South Central region, mainly in theHouston, Texas East and Texas South markets.

Robin Rossmann, STR's managing director, focused on the international side of the hotel industry and defining global moments from the last 10 years.

  • Markets that showed no demand change after more recent terror attacks wereBarcelona, Berlin, London and Manchester. Paris is the lone market that is still recovering after three years.
  • Europe is heading toward nine years of consecutive RevPAR growth.
  • Three countries with the highest RevPAR increases compared with 2008 areBudapest (+57%), Lisbon (+54%) Dublin (+52%).

Amanda Hite, STR's president and CEO, revealed the company's revised U.S. forecast for 2018 and 2019 during a panel that included Mark Woodworth (senior managing director for CBRE Hotels' Americas Research) and Lara Latture (president of Northwest X Southern Hospitality).

Among her points, Hite addressed whether or not the industry can continue breaking demand records and growing ADR and RevPAR. She listed potential in wage growth as a possible additional generator of demand moving forward.

Hite also cited growth in international arrivals as an area of opportunity for the industry. "Prior to 9/11, one in six international trips, the U.S. was the destination of choice. Today, it's one in eight international trips come to the U.S.," Hite said. "So, there's a lot of work being done in our industry to put this at the forefront of conversation to make sure that we can be an open, secure, accepting country, and we're going to have to do this to be able to continue to see demand growth."

Later in the day, Elizabeth Mullins, VP, Hotels and Resorts at The Walt Disney Company, provided her take on the industry and an inside look into Disney's approach to the industry.

The day closed with a "bosses" panel featuring Jim Chu, global head of development & owner relations at Hyatt Hotels Corporation; Rob Palleschi, CEO at G6 Hospitality; Mitch Patel, president & CEO at Vision Hospitality Group Inc. and Randy Smith, chairman and co-founder of STR.

Overall, the two-day HDC event includes five general sessions, 17 breakout panel sessions, 18 "data dash" sessions and nine advanced-level "data dive" discussions. All told, the conference will feature approximately 970 minutes of data.

About the Hotel Data Conference

The Hotel Data Conference is a gathering of industry executives with a specific interest in crunching data to improve the performance of their hotels and/or hotel companies. The conference content is designed to appeal to brand executives, hotel owners, developers, operators, revenue management specialists and pricing analysts. For more information, please visit www.HotelDataConference.com.

About STR

STR provides premium data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights for the global hospitality industry. Founded in 1985, STR maintains a presence in 15 countries with a corporate North American headquarters in Hendersonville, Tennessee, an international headquarters in London, and an Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore. STR was acquired in October 2019 by CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP), the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces. For more information, please visit str.com and costargroup.com.

Nick Minerd
Public Relations Coordinator
+1 (615) 824 8664 ext. 3305
STR

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