The article provides hotels with practical steps to train staff on recognizing trafficking signs and establishing reporting protocols to protect guests and avoid legal liability.
Analysis covers regulatory changes in California, New York, Illinois, and Washington driving hotels toward bulk dispensers over traditional mini bottles.
While Greenville’s lodging sector has traditionally focused on business travelers, it has evolved in recent years to embrace a wider variety of demand. Given the strong presence of major companies in the automotive manufacturing, advanced materials, aerospace, aviation, and health services fields, commercial demand has always been strong for area hotels. The market’s diverse employment base and expanding economy continues to attract new companies and new residents. This relocation demand, coupled with the growth of the market’s tourism sector since 2020 and expansion of the city’s downtown neighborhood, has resulted in lodging demand shifting more towards the leisure segment.
If your hotel’s top-line revenue is stalling or declining, you should consider ways to increase the other line items.
The economic and hotel demand landscape of Huntsville has been undergoing an expansion over the last several years. With several large-scale projects underway in this already well-established market home to a multitude of major demand generators, Huntsville has become a hotspot for growth, which in turn has boosted hotel demand.
Hospitality industry leaders need to act now to support its workers during the government shutdown. This is especially important due to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits program disruption. This needs to be the top issue every leadership team in the hospitality industry team is focusing on today. Thousands of hospitality and food service workers are facing immediate food insecurity and missed meals. The hospitality industry depends on these workers to deliver America’s service experience, yet we have left them in a dangerous position during this crisis. Congress must ensure SNAP continuity to protect both the workers and the industries that rely on them but until that happens, industry must take charge.
After an early post-pandemic rebound, Denver’s hotel market lost momentum in late 2023. Occupancy growth stalled in October 2023 as the leisure surge faded and corporate travel recovery plateaued, followed by limited rate growth through much of 2024. Occupancy declined each month from September 2024 through August 2025, as corporate and transient demand softened and government transient and group demand declined more significantly this year.
The San Francisco lodging market has been experiencing a major rebound in performance, with RevPAR up 8.9% as of year-to-date August. This improvement has been driven by a strong convention calendar, major employers implementing return-to-office mandates, and modest growth in tourism levels. San Francisco Travel Association anticipates Moscone Center will generate over 650,000 room nights in 2025, which equates to roughly 106.0% of 2023 levels but only 68.0% of peak 2019 performance. Salesforce, the city’s largest private employer, implemented a full return-to-office policy in January 2025. Gap, Inc. has been phasing in a return to office, increasing from two days a week in January to five days a week by the end of September 2025. The City of San Francisco has also implemented a four-day in-person mandate beginning August 2025.
On February 17, 2025, thousands of corrections officers at more than 25 prisons across Upstate New York went on strike over staffing shortages, poor working conditions, and the implementation of the HALT Act, which limits the use of solitary confinement in New York State prisons and jails. In an address to the public, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul reported that these strikes were considered illegal, as the state’s Taylor Law prohibits public employees from striking. The strike lasted 22 days before the State and the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA) reached an agreement that brought many of the striking employees back to work.
Since room sales generate lodging tax revenues, an overview of hotel market trends provides insight into the industry’s current and future fiscal impacts. As documented in our 2024 HVS Lodging Tax Study, the national lodging market has experienced recent growth in average daily room rates and revenue per available room. However, occupancy levels have remained relatively flat. The Average Daily Room Rate (“ADR”) represents the average revenue earned for each room rented in a hotel. Revenue per available room (“RevPAR”), the product of ADR and occupancy rate, is a standard industry metric that combines the effects of occupancy and room rates on overall revenue performance. ADR and RevPAR increased in 2024 but has seen slower growth through the first eight months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. The figure below compares year-over-year growth in the national lodging market from 2023 through August 2025.
Per the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP), there are two appraisal report formats: the restricted appraisal report and the standard appraisal report. But what’s the difference between these two report types, and how do you choose the right type for you?
In our travels for business and pleasure, we have had the opportunity to experience what now amounts to hundreds of luxury properties. Many of our visits are short, one or two nights, with most time spent in conferences or offices and a lack of vitamin D. These ‘quickies’ give you a feel for décor, topline service, and usually a snippet of their F&B prowess (especially when you are fortunate enough to dine with the GM!). But to really appreciate the essence of a property requires an in-depth period of a week or more.
The federal government per-diem rate is made up of a lodging allowance and a meals and incidental expense (M&IE) allowance. The per-diem lodging rates, which set the maximum amount a federal traveler can reimburse, are based on the average rates for mid-priced hotels and are set annually by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). A standard rate applies to most of the continental United States (CONUS), while individual rates apply to about 300 non-standard areas (NSAs), mostly comprising primary destinations or key cities.
There’s no better word to describe Kona Village – nestled in Kahuwai Bay along the western coast of the island of Hawaii – than as a paradise. Considered a sacred spot by the first Polynesian settlers who have called it home in centuries-old village of Kaʻūpūlehu, Kona Village Resort was first established in 1965 and run by a husband and wife team who welcomed guests for decades with a charming ‘ohana (family) spirit.
That the persona of Donald Trump stirs strong emotions is clear. The same can be said about his policies. In particular his trade policy is seen by many non-Americans as an attack on long-standing friendships. The way Trump forces countries into (trade) concessions rubs so many the wrong way that they no longer view the U.S. as a reliable ally. In that light, economic shifts are taking place with major consequences, including for the number of visitors to the United States—and therefore for the U.S. hospitality sector.
Alaska has embraced its identity as “The Last Frontier” and experienced significant growth in eco-tourism, fueled by rising cruise traffic and interest in outdoor recreation, helping to offset the state's declining oil industry. Despite challenges with strained infrastructure and political uncertainty, the overall outlook remains positive, with tourism revenues reaching record highs year-over-year.
The hotel demand landscape of Downtown Indianapolis is evolving rapidly, driven by major developments, a packed events calendar, and growing business activity downtown. With several large-scale development projects underway in a variety of sectors, the city is creating exciting opportunities for hotel owners, developers, and investors.Indianapolis is entering a new era of growth, marked by a wave of transformative development, institutional investment, and a steady resurgence in leisure and business travel. Downtown is evolving rapidly, fueled by major infrastructure upgrades and high-profile projects that are reshaping the city’s competitive position in the Midwest. For hotel owners, operators, and developers, the combination of a strong event calendar, corporate relocations, and destination enhancements illustrates the market’s long-term strength and investment opportunities.
Immersive experiences are not entirely new to hospitality and leisure—theme parks, destination hotels and resorts, and cultural attractions have long found ways to draw guests into unique worlds. What is changing is how properties are increasingly using technology to push those experiences further, creating spaces that blur the lines between the physical and digital and redefine what guests expect from leisure destinations.
Galveston’s lodging market is being reshaped by capital investments and regulatory changes. Since 2019, more than $400 million has been spent on new cruise terminals, resort redevelopments, and boutique hotel conversions, while cruise passenger counts reached a record 1.7 million in 2024. With new projects underway and new short-term-rental oversights, growth will be affected by shifting supply and demand dynamics.
Hotel insurance has long been sold as a safety net for one of the world’s most unpredictable industries. But behind the polished marketing and “peace of mind” slogans lies a history riddled with fine print, exclusions, and moments where insurers protected their bottom line far more aggressively than they protected hoteliers or their guests.