Hotel Demand Is Shaking Off Recreational Demand For Revenge Tourism

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — “Normalization,” at least in the U.S., continues to be the key phrase heard again and again throughout the 15th Annual Hotel Data Conference. 

At the final keynote presentation on key U.S. hotel industry trends, STR Vice President of Analytics Isaac Collazo left conference attendees with another phrase, perhaps a more calming one, “everything will be fine.”

Every time Collazo has looked at monthly commentary on the likelihood of recession, he said, “the recession has been pushed back a little more and lessened in impact.”

There might be checks and balances to this, of course. With no recession, or a very mild one, there will be more discernible income — and households earning more than $100,000 and $150,000 are growing — that might be spent internationally.

The share of luxury spending, meanwhile, is growing across the Atlantic Ocean, said Aoife Roche, head of commercial at STR.

It is not just leisure travel that appears to be healthy. Corporate travel also appears to be strong, with hoteliers looking more to "tweak and balance" their meetings, said Chris Cheney, Stonebridge Companies' vice president of hotel performance and analytics, at the Travel and Awards Committee meeting, conferences, and business exhibitions.

There are many reasons to be grateful in this industry. In retrospect, 2020 is only three years away.

Now is the time for hoteliers to double down on differentiation and improve their strategies. Customers have a wide variety of options and cash to choose from, but with travel demand outstripping inflation (US inflation is falling every month), there's a lot to look forward to.