Global Hotel Sector Is Turning a New Corner: New JLL Report

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.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, September 1. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

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.

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.

Not all hotels should pursue remote workers, a hotel group CEO has suggested, because they mostly served their purpose during the pandemic.

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.

While 2022 was a post-pandemic boom year for hotel demand in much of the world, total global hotel investment volume decelerated slightly to $71.9 billion, a decline of 2 percent relative to 2021. The relative lack of outbound Chinese hotel investment, the Russian war in Ukraine, and recessionary pressures in several markets tamped down the pace of growth.

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

Entrepreneur Richard Branson and Virgin Group announced a reorganization of their hotel brands on Thursday. Virgin Group, which owns a half-dozen luxury Virgin Hotels, will take control of Branson’s private collection of hotels, retreats, and islands (including Branson’s own much-hyped Necker Island), marketed as Virgin Limited Edition.

A pent-up surge in consumer demand for travel gave many hotel companies pricing power in 2022. But hoteliers charged the highest rates the market could support for more than just one-off circumstantial reasons. A critical ingredient in the formula was that hoteliers developed a newfound pricing discipline during the pandemic recovery — even when business travel was historically weak and international tourism was slow to recover in many markets.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, January 18. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

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.