Top 5 markets for hotel construction

According to the United States Construction Pipeline Trend Report by Lodging Econometrics (LE) for Q2 2023, the five markets with the largest hotel construction pipelines are Dallas with a record-high 184 projects/21,501 rooms, Atlanta with 141 projects/17,993 rooms, Phoenix with 119 projects/16,107 rooms, Nashville with 116 projects/15,346 rooms, and Los Angeles with 112 projects/17,797 rooms.

The markets with the most projects currently under construction at the Q2 close are New York with 47 projects/8,201 rooms, and Phoenix with 29 projects/6,064 rooms. Dallas has the most projects scheduled to start in the next 12 months with 69 projects/8,045 rooms, followed by Atlanta with 66 projects/7,932 rooms, and the Inland Empire market with 48 projects/4,946 rooms. Markets with the most projects in early planning are also led by Dallas with 90 projects/10,104 rooms, Los Angeles with 52 projects/8,663 rooms, and Nashville with 51 projects/6,009 rooms.

LE recorded a combined renovation and conversion pipeline total of 1,939 projects with 253,473 rooms for the U.S. at the Q2 close. The markets with the largest combined number of renovations and conversions are Atlanta with 39 projects/4,232 rooms, Chicago with 36 projects/4,921 rooms, and Dallas with 33 projects/5,687 rooms.

At the close of the second quarter, the Inland Empire market has the largest number of new projects announced into the pipeline with 7 projects/791 rooms, followed by Tampa with 6 projects/986 rooms, and Nashville with 6 projects/803 rooms.

For the first half of 2023, the U.S. opened 224 new hotels/27,194 rooms with another 384 new hotels/48,607 rooms expected to open by year-end. Reflective of the current pipeline, L.E.’s forecast for new hotel openings will continue to rise through 2025.

At Q2, the top 25 markets in the U.S. are forecast to open 40% of the rooms expected to open by year-end. Twenty-six percent of the new hotels forecast to open between now and 2023 year-end are concentrated within ten markets. Of these ten markets, those with the greatest number of new hotels forecast to open for all of 2023 are led by New York with 42 projects/7,192 rooms, followed by the Inland Empire market with 16 projects/1,564 rooms, Austin with 14 projects/2,021 rooms, Atlanta with 14 projects/1,369 rooms, and Dallas with 13 projects/2,100 rooms.

In 2024, Atlanta is forecast to top the list of new hotel openings with 20 projects/3,198 rooms, then Phoenix with 19 projects/3,480 rooms, and Dallas with 19 projects/2,159 rooms.
At this time, in 2025, Atlanta is anticipated to again lead in new hotel openings with 24 projects/2,829 rooms expected to open, followed by Dallas with 23 projects/2,343 rooms, and the Inland Empire market with 18 projects/1,844 rooms.