Many countries have laid new visions and concrete plans to facilitate international travel and gain larger shares of the global travel market. With demand for global travel high, and international inbound travel to the U.S. being years away from a full recovery, we must address the current challenges and deterrents to remain competitive as a destination.
Our team at Cogwheel Marketing attended the 2023 annual Hunter Hotel Investment Conference for a consecutive year and we wanted to be sure to share with our network the 10 Key Takeaways we extracted after packing in 3 days of education, collaboration and relationship building with hotel industry experts.
The Norfolk-Virginia Beach MSA comprises several cities aside from Norfolk and Virginia Beach, including Chesapeake, Suffolk, Newport News, Hampton, Portsmouth, and Williamsburg. The region’s economy revolves around the federal government, the military, the aerospace industry, and the transportation, construction, and healthcare sectors.
Spokane County’s current and under-construction offerings of sporting and event facilities continue to increase visibility for the market regionally and nationally. This article outlines the recent and upcoming changes to the county’s event facilities.
Another exceptional Hunter Conference is in the rearview mirror, with much thanks to Lee Hunter and his team, as well as the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, for pulling off a terrific event. Never a dull moment in the hotel industry, which is why many of us never leave the sector, with attendees having such varied opinions on how this year may play out.
Lake Tahoe’s economy is anchored by the tourism industry, which experienced significant growth post-COVID given its proximity to major cities such as Sacramento, San Francisco, and Reno, as well as the array of outdoor activities. The Lake Tahoe Basin is home to a growing population of year-round residents, and the popularity of second homes and investment properties in the area has resulted in soaring home prices and an affordable housing crisis. To preserve the area's natural beauty, local governments and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency have implemented strict development and short-term rental restrictions. Despite these restrictions, new lodging developments and redevelopments are underway, which are expected to reshape the mix of lodging supply going forward, particularly in the luxury segment.
Ask ten people what traveling the US looks like to them, and you’ll no doubt get ten different answers. It’s hiking in Yosemite, route 66 in a Cadillac, sundrenched Florida, pizza in NYC, and much, much more. It’s the boundless options that make the US one of the world’s top tourist destinations.
One of the most valuable assets of a hotel brand is information – detailed personal information about guests at their hotels, participants in their loyalty programs, and visitors to their websites. This information allows hotel brands to focus on creating guest loyalty, acquiring potential guests, engaging in effective marketing, expanding market share, and creating properties and services that entice and satisfy hotel guests. Because of this, hotel brands have long contended that they “own” hotel guest data and have unencumbered rights to use it, without respect to the interests of hotel owners and even the guests themselves.
With occupancy nearing the 70% mark and ADR levels approximately 4% above 2019 levels, the Denver lodging market achieved a RevPAR level in 2022 that was approximately $5 below 2019 levels. In line with the top 25 major metropolitan areas in the U.S., ADR has led the way in the recovery, with occupancy remaining below prior peaks.
The demand for travel during the American spring break timeframe is substantial—and demand remains strong despite higher prices. Let’s break down the expectations, pain points and opportunities for the industry.
Las Vegas’s 38.8 million total visitors in 2022 was roughly 91.3% of 2019 levels and only 4.1 million below the peak number of visitors in 2016. Gaming revenue for Clark County in 2022 was $12.8 billion, a new record for the market. Statistics from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reflect 43.6 million total occupied room nights for Las Vegas in 2022, 20.6% more than in 2021. Occupied room nights, as well as total occupancy (79.2%), continued to lag 2019 performance, but the market’s ADR ($170.98) and RevPAR ($135.42) reached record levels in 2022. This article examines the latest trends and developments relevant to the Las Vegas hospitality market.
Being part of a hotel sales team is a challenging job. Quite frankly, being a hospitality professional – regardless of your scope – is no easy job. The hospitality industry is an ever-shifting, ever-demanding industry that twists and bends according to the whim of travelers, which, as you might have guessed, can be hard to satisfy. But as challenging as it may be, the hospitality landscape offers countless opportunities for personal and professional reward; there is something to be said about working within a landscape so firmly rooted in great service, tradition, and human connection and exploration.
Similar to the rest of the nation, hotel metrics in St. Louis plummeted in 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the market had entered a healthy recovery phase by the spring of 2021. Growth accelerated through the remainder of the year, fueled by a surge of leisure travel and the slow reemergence of commercial demand, as well as the return of conventions and major events.
The National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) recently released an international visitation forecast, its first since the onset of the pandemic. The forecast, which extends until 2027, projects that inbound travel will fully recover to pre-pandemic levels in 2025. This is consistent with U.S. Travel’s fall 2022 forecast. By 2027, NTTO projects that there will be 91 million international visitations, which is in line with the government’s recently-announced National Travel and Tourism Strategy.
The onsite restaurant is a hallmark of nearly any great hotel, with customer sentiments towards the former entity reflecting back onto property reviews and, ultimately, guestroom bookings. Within the F&B silo, we glorify the cuisine, the beverage selection, the wine cellar, the décor, the location and the executive chef, but rarely do the servers get their moment in the spotlight. And yet, like a triage nurse who first attends to a desperately ill patient entering the emergency room and is the lifesaving determinant ahead of any doctor’s intervention, server teams are the frontline for success in any hotel’s F&B operation.
Winning budget to replace your photo assets.
There is no denying that 2021 and 2022 were challenging years for the hospitality industry. While hotels remained shuttered and planes remained uncharacteristically desolate amid the COVID-19 pandemic, hoteliers and hospitality technology vendors contemplated the same question – what would the post-pandemic landscape look like, and when would it (finally) come into view? The long-awaited period of industry revival is now undeniably upon us, and hospitality brands have surged back to life as travelers worldwide look to make up for lost time.
The greater Tampa Bay lodging market is thriving, as evidenced by rising RevPAR levels, the entrance and subsequent absorption of significant new guestroom inventory, several high-profile transactions, and numerous exciting development projects in the market’s pipeline.
A recent Gartner report claims that by 2025, quite 50% of organizations around the world will have a cloud-based procure-to-pay suite. Tools like BirchStreet Pay are gaining traction as hotels learn more about the advantages and cost opportunities of using saving procurement solutions.
It’s a difficult lending environment across the nation at the moment, but RevPAR is expected to continue to rise in the foreseeable future, particularly supported by ADR growth. Debt, while very expensive, is available, and one lesson learned from the pandemic is the importance of sponsorship, including relationships with the brands.Below is the SWOT analysis for the U.S. hotel real estate and investment industry as outlined at the GF Hotels Forum in Towson, Maryland.
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