Lodging

According to the March 2019 edition of CBRE’s Hotel Horizons forecast report, RevPAR growth for the U.S. lodging industry will be limited to under 2.5 percent through 2020.  Further, CBRE is projecting a 0.6 percent decline in RevPAR for 2021 as CBRE expects the economy to slow down during the year.  The combination of modest increases in revenue and rising operating expenses (especially labor) make hotel owners and operators nervous about their ability to enjoy profit growth in the next few years.

35.7 percent of the hotels in their U.S. national sample achieved an occupancy level less than 60 percent during 2018.

In 2017, as rooms revenue growth decelerated to 1.5 percent, Attrition and Cancellation Fee revenue declined by 1.8 percent.

According to STR, U.S. hotels achieved all-time high levels of occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR in 2018.  While a record number of guests are staying at hotels, and revenues are flowing in, the ability to collect these funds is starting to become more of a challenge.

According to the December 2018 edition of CBRE’s Hotel Horizons, the annual growth in RevPAR for U.S. hotels is forecast to decelerate from 2.8 percent in 2018 to 0.1 percent in 2021.  As the main source of hotel revenue is plateauing, hoteliers are looking up and down their operating statements to find alternative sources of income.  For hotels that operate a spa, this department has stood out as a bright spot not only for growth in revenue, but gains in profits as well.

Technology, online intermediaries, social media, revenue management software, shared-services, and the proliferation of market intelligence reports have reshaped the way hotel Sales and Marketing Departments conduct business.  The traditional organizational structure of assigning personnel by demand segments (commercial, group, leisure) has given way to assignment by function (revenue management, social media, channel distribution, customer relationship management).  According to one industry executive, most of the “selling” of hotel rooms has moved from the property level to corporate and