For those of us working in the AEC industry – including supplying materials for it – the hospitality sector continues to drive strong business. The rest of 2018 and well into 2019 are looking good for hotel construction, especially with the introduction of hotel software, that will make it a lot easier for staff to manage their hotels and give the customers a high level of customer service during their stay.
More than 130,200 rooms in 1,145 new projects will open in 2018, according to the U.S. Construction Pipeline Trend Report from Lodging Econometrics (LE), reports Hotel Business magazine. That represents a 2.5% supply growth rate over 2017, with LE predicting 2.5% continued growth in 2019. In both years, LE’s analysts see the strongest growth in the upper-midscale and upscale lodging categories.
PwC also projects solid hospitality growth, albeit at a somewhat lower rate than does LE – 2% supply growth for 2018 and 1.9% for 2019. Hotel Management magazine provides additional details on the firm’s hospitality outlook, including record occupancy this year of 66.3%.
This construction growth continues despite the difficulty hotel owners and developers are experiencing with securing skilled labor. As Hotel News Now reporter Brendan Manley writes, though, “despite the challenges of new-hotel construction, the right deals under the right conditions can happen, particularly for owners and developers savvy about lending, branding and weighing all their options.”
Perhaps a shameless plug on our part, but we see modular/pre-fab construction as one of those “options” Manley mentions. To learn how pre-fab can help you get heads in beds on a more timely schedule, check out this article, and contact us at: [email protected] with your questions.