US Hoteliers Decidedly Optimistic Heading in to Second Half of 2023

Article originally posted on CoStar on June 12, 2023

Jan Freitag is CoStar's national director of hospitality analytics, and Isaac Collazo is STR's vice president of analytics. (Rachel Daub)

NEW YORK — Even though hotel transaction volume is low and a possible recession looms, industry performance indicates that U.S. hoteliers are right to feel optimistic about the future.

With the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference as a backdrop, Hotel News Now sat down with industry analysts Isaac Collazo, vice president of analytics at STR, and Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality market analytics at at CoStar Group. During this podcast discussion, Freitag and Collazo unpacked the realities of hotel industry performance in the U.S. today, how and to what extent a recession might factor in and identified some of the outside forces that are having an impact on the industry today.

In this lively, off-the-cuff conversation, Collazo and Freitag debate whether the optimism they witnessed from conference stages last week is warranted and more. Here’s some of what you’ll hear:

-Performance, performance, performance: “Life’s good, KPIs are good, growth rates looking forward are good,” Freitag said, referencing STR’s recent updated forecast. And while rates are starting to moderate, Freitag and Collazo discuss whether still-increasing demand will be enough to keep performance in line with inflation.
-The possibility of a rolling recession: While different companies and agencies predict different levels of a recession still to happen, Collazo and Freitag discuss how a “rolling recession” may be the more likely possibility — and how the fact that “the travel economy is different from the general economy,” as Collazo puts it, may help the industry weather the storm better.
-The downtown recovery and “savior” of group travel: While leisure travel demand normalizes, Collazo and Freitag share some of the data from related industries that show group demand and related business demand for downtown markets are pushing the industry forward.
-Why the transactions side of the industry remains the wild card: Freitag talks about the duality of deals news coming out of the conference. On one hand, Blackstone last week sold the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa for $800 million, while on the other hand, real estate investment trust Park Hotels & Resorts is ceasing payment on a $725 million loan for two San Francisco hotels.

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