Analysts at Lodging Econometrics (LE) reported that new hotel openings in the United States will accelerate over the next two years. This year the U.S. is scheduled to open a total of 742 new hotels.
Based on the current construction pipeline, 845 hotels are forecast to open in 2016 with another 998 hotel openings in 2017. LE says that the growth in new hotel openings from 2016 to 2017 will be led by three major franchise companies, which are forecast to brand 67% of all new openings: Marriott International with 456, Hilton Worldwide with 406, and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) with 374.
Another report from Hotel Market Data (HMD) says that over the next 12 months it expects over 1,100 hotels to be constructed in the U.S. in 2016, resulting in approximately 150,000 new rooms.
HMD identified Cleveland, Pittsburgh and New York City as the top three markets in terms of growth rate. Both the Cleveland and Pittsburgh MSA regions are each projected to add over 2,300 new rooms; meanwhile the New York City MSA region anticipates nearly 17,000 new rooms opening in 2016.
