Analysts from STR and Tourism Economics offer insights into the firms’ updated forecast, which predicts a roughly two-year recovery for the U.S. hotel industry.
Published by: Emmy Hise and Aran Ryan/Hotel News Now
Published date: June 2020
BROOMFIELD, Colorado, and PHILADELPHIA—Forecasting U.S. hotel performance is a moving target due to unknown variables such as government regulations and containment measures related to COVID-19.
As the impact from the pandemic continues to evolve, Tourism Economics and STR released an updated total U.S. hotel-industry forecast on 26 June.
The primary drivers are:
- Economic conditions that correlate hotel performance recovery with GDP and unemployment recovery,
- Expectations that COVID-19 will remain a defining factor through first-quarter 2021, with particularly negative impacts to international and group demand;
- A four-stage lodging demand recovery based on gradual relaxation of social distancing measures that is expected to result in strengthening demand;
- Delayed under-construction properties, and fewer construction starts until the industry improves; and
- Average-daily-rate declines through Q1 2021 that will then gradually normalize.
