US Had Highest Number of Hotel Projects in 2018

Lodging Econometric’s year-end Global Construction Project Trend Report found that hotel construction projects globally increased from 2017 to 2018 by seven percent, making it a record high year. In 2018, there was a six percent increase in room numbers which resulted in a total of 2.3 million rooms worldwide.

The United States had the highest number of hotel projects in 2018 with 669,460 rooms under construction. China followed the U.S., accounting for 20 percent of hotel projects of the global construction pipeline. The U.S. hotel projects make up 41 percent of all projects in the world.

The top five markets in the U.S. with the most hotel construction projects were New York City, followed by Dallas and Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta and Nashville. New York is expected to have 65 new hotels in 2019, while Dallas will have 31 projects, 30 projects in Houston, 22 in Nashville and 14 in Los Angeles.

In terms of hotel brands, Marriott International and Hilton set new all-time pipeline records in 2019 by project and room count. Marriott, Hilton and InterContinental Hotels Group led hotel projects in 2018 and will continue to do so in 2019. Marriott is expected to open 287 projects in 2019, while Hilton has 274 projects in the works and IHG, 152 projects.

In terms of the global market, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific reached new hotel project records in 2018. New York City came in first among cities globally with 171 hotel projects and 29,460 rooms in 2018, followed by Dubai with 168 hotel construction projects and 49,950 hotel rooms.

Lodging Econometrics says that 6,352 hotels and 1.1. million hotel rooms are currently under construction across the globe and 3,860 more projects are set to begin construction in 2019.