hotel construction, in the face of challenges, remains resilient

While the Covid-19 economic shutdown has negatively impacted many segments of the national construction industry, hotel construction remains a bright spot.

According to a new report issued by Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based Lodging Econometrics, the total hotel pipeline as of the end of June stood at just under 5,600 projects.

“Contrary to what is being experienced with hotel operations, the pipeline remains robust as interest rates are at all-time lows,” says the report.

The new projects represent nearly 688,000 rooms, a number that is down by only 1 percent over projects that were under construction exactly a year ago.

That’s not to say that there haven’t been some projects either delayed or outright cancelled due to the Covid economy. But even taking into consideration those factors, says Lodging Econometrics, there are currently just under 2,400 hotels scheduled to start construction between now and the summer of 2021.

That equals out to a total of 276,000 new rooms.

In addition, there are more than 1,400 hotels comprising a net total of 176,087 rooms, currently in the early planning stage.

But the Lodging Econometrics report offers a cautionary note: “With franchise development staff largely working from home, non-essential travel halted, and with the ongoing pandemic, the ability to get a new development deal signed has slowed.”

This means that there has been a 53 percent drop in the number of newly announced building projects compared with the spring of last year.
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But even so, adds the report, more and more hotels have “begun to move up renovation plans,” adding to a total of more than 1,400 recorded renovation projects in the first half of this year.

By Garry Boulard

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