Hotel construction in U.S. is outpacing the rest of the world

The United States continues to lead all countries with the largest hotel construction pipelines, according to the latest estimates by Portsmouth, N.H.-based Lodging Econometrics, a global real estate consulting firm.

Through the end of the first quarter of 2016, the U.S. had 4,471 projects under construction with an aggregate 551,965 rooms. Those numbers represent 40% of the projects and 29% of its rooms in the global pipeline, which in total is up 5% year-over-year by projects, and 6% by rooms.

New York, with 187 projects and 32,136 rooms, topped all cities worldwide with the largest hotel construction pipelines. “New York City has been adding more hotel rooms at a faster rate than the national average, with new properties springing up as existing ones are being spruced up across the five boroughs,” states NYC & Company, a research and analytics firm, in a recent report tracking the city’s prospective hotel development through 2019.

Lodging Econometrics found that New York is followed in the U.S. by Houston (169 projects), Dallas (128), Los Angeles (94), and newcomer to the top five Nashville (89).

Marriott International has the most hotel projects in the U.S. construction pipelines in four of those five metros. (Intercontinental Hotels Group leads in Houston, with 46 projects underway.)

According to its latest United States Construction Pipeline Trends report, Lodging Econometrics estimates that hotel development by upscale chains represented 31% (1,384 projects) of the total domestically. The leading upscale brands—all of which are under Marriott’s umbrella—are Residence Inn with 168 Projects, Courtyard with 140 projects and SpringHill Suites with 124 projects. These three largest brands account for one third of all pipeline projects in the upscale chain scale.

Excluding the U.S., there were 5,277 projects and 990,669 rooms under construction globally through Q1 2016. That’s down 1% by projects and 1% by rooms from the same period a year ago. China leads the way with 2,448 projects and 549,333 rooms. Distantly following are Brazil (407/70,833), Indonesia (398/64,695) and India (314/47,566).

The four countries trailing the U.S. had shrinking pipelines in the last year, down an average of 12% by projects. India recorded the largest drop, with a decrease of 19% by project count.

Cities outside of the U.S. where hotel construction is strongest include Jakarta, with 130 projects and 22,851 rooms being built; Seoul, South Korea (128/27,187); Shanghai (114/24,285), and Dubai (104/29,948).

Projects scheduled to start construction globally in the next 12 months are up 24% by projects to 3,214 projects and 22% by rooms to 466,129. Hotels in early planning stages, at 2,705 projects/462,016 rooms, are down 1% by projects but up 3% by rooms.