Why supply growth decline won't truly benefit the industry until 2011

As I’m sure most readers of this blog are aware, this week STR revised our 2009 and 2010 U.S. lodging industry forecasts. While certainly not the biggest driver in our downward revisions in both years, the persistent nature of new hotel openings certainly played a role in the determination of the final numbers. To refresh your memory our previous 2009 forecast called for supply growth of 2.6 percent, which we have now upped to 3.0 percent.