External Articles
Miami Suddenly Has a Glut of Plush Hotel Suites | bloomberg.com
Hotels in sun-drenched Miami are getting burned by a pullback in Brazilian travel and a building boom that has added thousands of rooms to the market. Nightly room costs are dropping. Greater Miami’s revenue per available room -- a key measure of rates and occupancies known as revpar -- has fallen each month this year, and in April was the worst of the top 25 U.S. markets, according to STR, a data provider for the lodging industry. Marriott International Inc., set to become the world’s largest hotel operator, said on its first-quarter earnings call that Miami is among its weakest U.S. areas.
Despite Worries About Supply, Some Say Nyc Still 'Under-Hoteled' | bisnow.com
Despite the city’s total key count growing by over 30,000 since 2007, to a total of over 100,000—reflecting a level of construction in the hospitality sector not seen since the '20s or '30s, many of the panelists were bullish about the future of hotels in NYC. “A lot of people have been saying the hotel boom in New York is coming to an end, but I don’t see any empirical evidence to prove it,” says Dan Lesser (pictured above on the right with Walker & Dunlop’s Neil Bane and Tribeca Associates’ Mark Gordon), CEO of LW Hospitality Advisors. “In terms of fundamentals, there’s never been a better time to operate a hotel in the US, and I still think New York is under-hoteled,” he adds, noting that occupancy rates last year still hovered around 90% in NYC, far above the national rate of about 65%. “If you buy today and hold for seven or 10 years, I don’t see how you can lose,” Dan says.
NYC’s great hotel boom days are numbered | nypost.com
Believe it or not, the city’s golden age of new hotel development is just about over.
That’s insane, right? What about the giant new Edition Times Square and the Virgin Hotel in NoMad, both set to open in 2018?
Well, they’ll be the exceptions beyond early next year, by which time the great wet bar in the sky will largely have run dry.
Lodging Summit panelists see possible slowdown in demand | travelweekly.com
Many panelists at last week’s Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) suggested that North American lodging demand is due for a slowdown and that the best development opportunities now lie outside of the so-called gateway cities where demand has been the highest in recent years. While 2015 marked record-high U.S. hotel room demand, doom and gloom prevailed, with terms like “clouds on the horizon,” “stench in the economy,” “pullback at the end of the year,” and references to an up-cycle that’s “long in the tooth” peppering comments from conference panelists.
5 things to know about US December performance | hotelnewsnow.com
December saw no calendar shifts, and the amount of weekdays and weekends remained the same. The argument could be made that because the 31st fell on a Thursday it could have enticed longer trips, but we did not see any of that.
Hotel room rates may be hiked 'aggressively,' forecaster says | cnbc.com
Hotel owners across the U.S. are expected to be told later Monday they should be able to "aggressively" raise room prices this year, with one consultancy already forecasting the national average room rate to rise 5.4 percent. One of the lodging industry's most prominent forecasters is expected to share room price details at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit conference in Los Angeles. The market can absorb "significant" hikes because strong fundamentals already have been pushing occupancy rates to fresh records in 2015.
Moderate rate increases for business travelers: Amex | HotelsMag.com
American Express Global Business Travel this week released its 12th annual Business Travel Forecast, revealing moderate price increases are expected for air, hotel and ground transportation prices next year. Global hotel performance is expected to improve in 2016, as limited increases in inventory fail to keep pace with the growing global appetite for travel.
Arne wants to know... | hotelsmag.com
I had the opportunity to speak with Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson on Monday, the same day his company announced its deal to acquire Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which will make it the first company to reach more than 1 million rooms and becoming the overwhelmingly biggest hotel operator in the world. Arne sounded horse and tired by the time we spoke at about 4 p.m. eastern time – not at all surprising given I was likely about the 20th media interview he did after the morning announcement that stunned the industry. Twice during the seven-month Starwood strategic review Marriott claimed it wasn’t interested in buying Starwood. But after Starwood’s announced sale of its timeshare unit and 15% in its stock price Marriott reconsidered and quickly pounced on the opportunity, no doubt outbidding numerous potential suitors.
Hotel And Dining Price Hikes Drive Mild Daily U.S. Travel Cost Increases | businesstravelnews.com
Led by hotel and dining price increases, the average daily on-the-ground business trip cost in the United States inched upward by nearly 2 percent from last year in BTN's 2014 Corporate Travel Index, which measures daily hotel, rental car and dining expenses in 100 U.S. markets.
Super Bowl was not so super for hotels | latimes.com
This year’s Super Bowl was less than super for hotels in New York and New Jersey. Hotel occupancy rates for Super Bowl weekend were 61% in Bergen County, N.J., 79% in New York's Times Square area and 75% in New York’s uptown and midtown areas, according to the hotel consulting and analytics firm STR Analytics.
Data conference speakers tackle declining group demand, sluggish ADR growth and more | hotelmanagement.net
Data and statistical trends are behind every story at the annual STR Hotel Data Conference, and this year's discussions keep returning to some common themes-- declining group business demand, revenue management and the age-old question: Why isn't the industry pushing rate more? A
Hotel CEOs: Government still a mess, but industry moving forward in 2013 | hotelmanagement.net
panel of hotel CEOs here at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit were mostly bullish on the state of the industry, but wary of issues mainly out of their control, namely, governmental. "The government issue is a mess," said Robert Gaymer-Jones, CEO of Sofitel, which will open 10 hotels this year. "Taxation is creating problems for individuals. How to pay for the debt?"
Four-Year Boom Expected for the US Hotel Industry | cnbc
The United States is "the poster child of optimism anywhere around the world," Jim Burba, chair of the Americas Lodging Investment Summit and president of the Burba Hotel Network said at this year's ALIS, the world's largest hotel investment conference. A whopping 98 percent of delegates, including investors and hotel-service providers, said they expect positive revenue per available room growth in 2013. RevPAR, as it's known, is calculated by multiplying a hotel's average room rate by its occupancy rate. Burba expects drastically lower growth in RevPAR in Asia and Europe.
IHMRS: Sandy's effects felt, but not a death knell for hotel industry | hotelmanagement.net
While Hurricane Sandy inflicted an inordinate about of damage on the most densely populated portion of the U.S., the hotel industry should still see gains this year, according to a U.S. lodging industry panel at the AH&LA Fall Conference held in conjunction with the International Hotel, Motel and Restaurant Show at the Jacob Javits Center in New York. "Despite Sandy, the underlying trajectory of travel remains," said Warren Marr, managing director, PwC.
Hotels Predict Revenue Lost to Storm Can't Be Recouped | wsj.com
Many hoteliers predict that revenue and bookings swept away by the multiday Hurricane Sandy can't be recouped. Hotel owners with numerous properties in the storm's path reported that cancellations from travelers so far are outpacing new bookings from stranded guests and recovery workers. Hoteliers also expect that little of the revenue lost from canceled conferences can be reclaimed through insurance claims.
Lodging Conference Highlights Disconnect Between Industry and Overall Economy | hotelbusiness.com
Speakers on the first day of the 18th Annual Lodging Conference, here, pointed the difference between rebounding hotel industry fundamentals and the overall U.S. economy, which remains sluggish. According to Vail Brown, Smith Travel Research VP of global business development and and marketing, for the first eight months of 2012, the industry's performance has been very strong with ADR growing at a faster pace than occupancy . Demand has outpaced supply growth for the past 25 months, Brown aded.
Hotels sold record 500 million room nights through June | usatoday.com
Hotel Check-In has invited hotel analyst Jan D. Freitag, a senior vice president at hotel industry tracker STR, to give us the scoop on hotel rates once a quarter. He'll look at U.S. room rate recovery by market. STR provides hotel operators, developers, financiers and other clients hotel data, including forecasts. His first post ran on June 5. In this piece, he tells us that U.S. hotels have set a record - despite the economy.
Data experts share mixed signals at NYU Conference | hotelnewsnow.com
Except for the lack of dramatic growth in average daily rate, the performance of the U.S. hotel industry during the past 18 months has been, by most accounts, solid. That’s what makes Randy Smith, chairman and co-founder of STR, the parent of HotelNewsNow.com, nervous. Speaking Monday during the 34th Annual New York University International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference at the New York Marriott Marquis, Smith pointed to a trend that, while it looks good on a chart, could be a long-term problem.
At NYU, hospitality leaders grapple with uncertainty | hotelmanagement.net
Recent volatility in global financial markets, along with a lack of new supply in the US hotel pipeline, left leaders with a mixed view of the industry's strength on the first day of the 34th annual New York University International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference at the New York Marriott Marquis. "Since the national recovery began, travel has grown one-third faster than the rest of the economy," said Dr. Bjorn Hanson, divisional dean of the Preston Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management at NYU. "Political leaders are coming to a realization that travel means business."