New U.S. hotel development reached an historic low in the fourth quarter of 2010 and will remain sluggish for the next three years, according to a report from Lodging Econometrics (LE), a company that tracks hotel development trends.
For 2011, LE projects that 446 hotels with a total of 46,343 guest rooms will come online in the U.S. this year, representing a growth rate of 0.9 percent. In 2012, the amount is forecast to rise slightly to 487 new hotels with a total of 48,860 guest rooms.
The 2011 amount is a drop of more than two-thirds from the development totals in 2009, a year when more than 1,300 new hotels opened in the U.S. Last year, development slowed to 449 new hotels and 53,991 guest rooms.
The report noted that financing remains difficult to obtain, with banks unlikely to finance new construction “until most of their ‘distressed loans’ have been cleared from their portfolios and the lodging industry’s performance has improved.”
