Sturdy Q2 U.S. Hotel Pipeline Sets More Records

The pipeline of U.S. hotel properties under development remains robust, according to a new report from Lodging Econometrics, with nearly 6,100 hotels and more than 713,000 rooms at the end of the second quarter. The figures represent year-over-year increases of 9 percent and 8 percent, respectively, and each is a record high, as it was the prior quarter.

Dallas yet again leads the U.S. as the city with the most hotels in the pipeline, with 189 projects and nearly 22,400 rooms, according to Lodging Econometrics. The city has led all others in pipeline count since the second quarter of 2021, when New York led.

More than 1,170 U.S. projects comprising nearly 148,000 rooms were under construction at the end of the second quarter, up 10 percent and 4 percent, respectively, year over year. About 2,350 projects (up 5 percent) with nearly 269,000 rooms (up 3 percent) are scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months, according to Lodging Econometrics.

"LE expects that as interest rates begin to decline, projects scheduled to start in the next 12 months will move to under construction rather quickly," according to the company.

Upscale and upper midscale properties comprise about 60 percent of all projects in the total pipeline, according to Lodging Econometrics, while extended-stay brands comprise 36 percent of the hotels under construction and 33 percent of the projects scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months.

Dallas' presence in the pipeline led Atlanta, which has 159 projects with 18,500 rooms, and the Inland Empire of California, which has 124 projects with nearly 12,600 rooms.

Lodging Econometrics projected total 2024 U.S. openings of 650 new hotels with more than 74,200 rooms, with nearly 780 hotels with more than 87,400 rooms forecast to open in 2025 and nearly 930 projects with nearly 102,000 to open in 2026.