PORTSMOUTH, NH—At the end of the first half of 2019, analysts at Lodging Econometrics (LE) report that the top five markets with the largest hotel construction pipelines are led by New York City with 166 projects/28,231 rooms.
Next are Dallas and Los Angeles with 162 projects/19,972 rooms and 158 projects/25,428 rooms, respectively. Houston follows with 146 projects/14,998 rooms, and Atlanta with 130 projects/17,280 rooms. With the exception of NYC and Houston, these top markets are at record-high counts.
The top 10 markets in the pipeline—the five markets mentioned above plus Nashville, TN; Austin, TX, Orlando, FL; Detroit; and Charlotte, NC—account for 25% of the rooms in the total pipeline. Ten states claim 61% of the rooms in the pipeline: Texas, California, Florida, New York, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Michigan, Colorado and Ohio.
For the first half of 2019, the U.S. has opened 456 new hotels/53,527 rooms with another 599 new hotels/66,300 rooms expected to open by year-end. Reflective of the robust pipeline, LE’s forecast for new hotel openings will continue to rise through 2021.
Twenty-five percent of the new hotels forecast to open between now and the 2021 year-end are concentrated in 10 markets. These markets are New York City; Los Angeles; Orlando, FL; Dallas; Atlanta; Nashville, TN; Houston; Washington DC; Miami; and Phoenix. The top 25 markets are forecast to open 40% of the rooms expected to open.