Higher rooms rates are looming on the horizon, according to a lodging industry forecast that predicts robust growth for 2011.
PricewaterhouseCoopers’ U.S. lodging forecast expects the lodging recovery that took off in the first half of this year to gain more ground for the remainder of 2010 and be even stronger in 2011.
The recovery is forecast to be fueled by a mix of demand and room rate growth. So far, the recovery has been led almost exclusively by demand. Revenue per available room (RevPAR) is expected to rise 4.1 percent in 2010. RevPAR will be even better in 2011 at 6.7 percent growth, according to the forecast.
Helping to buoy the recovery is the current slowdown in hotel construction, allowing the existing supply to gain some traction. The pace of new hotel construction plummeted from 133,000 rooms in 2008 to 47,000 in 2009. The annualized rate of new construction in 2010 is just 32,000 rooms.
