A Few Top Takeaways From Hotel Earnings Season

New York City’s short-term rental regulations could slash up to 70% of Airbnb’s 23,000 active listings in the city after September 5. Experts are divided on how the move might affect hotels, and their forecasts are foggy. Yet the analyses reveal interesting details about this critical lodging market regardless.

Here are the top stories from the Daily Lodging Report newsletter in the past week. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here now.

Can hotels exert more influence in policy-making? Where will future development growth come from? Is generative AI relevant to the hotel sector? These and other subjects will be top of mind for us as we interview top bosses at Hilton, Hyatt, Accor, and other hotel leaders on-stage at the Skift Global Forum in New York on September 26-28.

Travelers United’s choice to sue Hyatt over its “junk fee” practices fits into a broader storyline about travel junk fees being in the limelight ever since President Joe Biden referred to travel fees in his 2023 State of the Union address.

Here are the top stories from Daily Lodging Report in the past week. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here, now.

Hyatt just lapped the one-year anniversary of acquiring the all-inclusive resort company Apple Leisure Group in a $2.7 billion deal. The Chicago, Illinois-based hotel group is now looking to expand its hotel presence in European cities that could help feed its all-inclusives, according to comments executives made as they reported its earnings.

Earnings seasons for the hotel sector is nearly over, and one striking aspect of executive comments on calls with investors was the resilience of development pipelines for hotels belonging to brands run by global groups. For new construction, conversions, and franchise signings, hotel companies painted an optimistic picture.

Hyatt Hotel Corp. said on Tuesday it would acquire Dream Hotel Group’s lifestyle hotel brands, including Dream Hotels, The Chatwal Hotels, and Unscripted Hotels.

“I’m really excited about the quality of the brand portfolio,” IHG CEO Keith Barr said at Skift Global Forum. Barr goes on to describe the current realities of the hotel business: it’s a real estate business at the end of the day, after all. But IHG has been hyper-focused on its brands and its franchise partners. “It’s been great because there’re such clearly defined brands that enable us to work with a number of opportunities,” he told Skift’s Sean O’Neill.

Here are some excerpts from Daily Lodging Report from the past week. If you’re not a subscriber, you should be. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here, now.

Hotel company Sonesta said on Tuesday it would launch a new brand, Sonesta Essential, and offer a just-added brand, The James, to developers.

Ace Group International, the operator of a buzzy brand of 11 open Ace lifestyle hotels, will be acquired by Sortis Holdings, a Portland, Oregon-based hospitality firm, the companies said on Tuesday.