New U.S. Hotel Construction Projects Up 20 Percent Year Over Year in Q2
A total of 372 new U.S. hotel projects with 45,084 rooms were announced in the first half of 2021, with 202 of those 25,653 rooms announced in the second quarter, representing a 20 percent year-over-year announcement increase for Q2, according to the latest U.S. construction pipeline report from Lodging Economics.
For the first half of 2021, 472 new hotels with 59,034 rooms opened in the United States, and Lodging Econometrics is forecasting another 450 projects with 51,754 rooms to open during the second half of 2021, a 2 percent increase in new supply for 2022. In its first forecast for 2023, the company anticipates another 2 percent supply increase, with an additional 997 projects with 115,271 rooms.
Currently under construction are 1,165 projects with 159,581 rooms, and those anticipated to start within the next 12 months total 1,843 projects with 213,744 rooms, according to Lodging Econometrics. Those in the early planning stages stand at 1,779 projects with 224,786 rooms. The increase in projects in the early stages reflects a combination of developer confidence to initiate new construction projects and the recalibration of timelines for some existing projects, according to the company.
Conversions continue to hold strong, with 1,181 active conversion projects with 128,810 rooms in the first half of 2021. Renovations for the same period totaled 1,152 projects with 238,110 rooms.
Top Markets by Pipeline
New York City took the top spots for the U.S. market with the largest construction pipeline at the close of the second quarter (146 projects with 25,232 rooms), the most projects under construction (111 with 19,582 rooms), the highest number of hotels forecast to open in 2021 (59 projects with 8,583 rooms) for a 7.2 percent supply increase, as well as the highest number of hotels expected to open in 2022 (46 projects with 7,934 rooms).
Following New York, the four cities with the largest hotel construction pipelines in the United States were Los Angeles (135 projects with 22,586 rooms), Dallas (132 projects with 16,183 rooms), Atlanta (129 projects with 17,845 rooms) and Nashville (91 projects with 12,703 rooms).
Cities with the most projects under construction after New York were Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas and Austin, Tex. Combined, these five markets account for nearly 25 percent of the total number of rooms currently under construction in the U.S., according to Lodging Econometrics.
Donna M. Airoldi www.businesstravelnews.com