100 New Brand Name Hotels To Open in 2010, Good News for Travelers
2009 saw many hotel companies open new properties or relaunch remodeled ones. With more than 100 hotels from major brands scheduled to open across the United States, 2010 looks to be an even stronger year for openings. For the traveler this is good news as a surplus of room inventory will keep prices down. That’s not such a good thing for the hotels. So why would they want to open so many hotels right now?
The answer, according to Mark Lomanno, president of Smith Travel Research, is that “hotel building cycles rarely mesh just right with economic cycles.” Planning a new hotel can take two to four years, and construction an additional one to four years. Most of the hotels getting ready to open were on the drawing boards several years ago, when the economy was healthy, demand for rooms was strong and room rates were rising quickly.
Of course, the opposite will also be true. Not a lot of hotels are being planned during the recession. So everything should start to balance out in three to four years. But in the meantime, now is your chance to get out there and experience some amazing savings as these new hotels fight for market share.
Where to go? The article in the NY Times says that the largest portion of the hotels, nearly half, will be opening in the New York area with another 30 opening in Houston. Other cities with large expansion include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, and Washington DC. Popular family destination Orlando experienced large growth in 2009, so don’t forget them either.
