Hospitality Industry News and Reports

Latest news in the hospitality industry

A year of increased stability and growth

At the beginning of 2023 the focus was firmly on growth, particularly given the effects of COVID on the travel sector over the preceding years. First, to infrastructure: 103,230 rooms are scheduled to open this year in 865 US hotels. Marriott Hotels has opened its biggest property in Europe – an 869-room hotel in Madrid, Spain. With more rooms comes more work, and the British Hospitality Association aims to create 100,000 jobs. In other news:

• Hotels in London experienced a 4.2% decrease in occupancy during December.
• The average guest spends 4.5 hours a day on their smartphones.
• Chinese travellers took 40 million outbound trips in the first half of 2023 – lower than 155 million outbound trips in 2019, but more than the near-zero trips during the country’s extensive COVID lockdown.
• Chūō-ku in Osaka, Japan was named the top destination to visit by Airbnb.
• Hospitality workers would rather earn more money than receive additional perks.
• Almost one in five hotel rooms booked online are cancelled prior to travel.

A shift in trends

Traveller trends are in focus as most destinations enter their shoulder seasons. On average a traveller will book a trip 73 days in advance, although this varies greatly from country to country: 45 days for Japanese travellers (who tend to take short tips), up to 99 days for British. Another survey found 56% of respondents visit a hotel’s website as part of their travel research process. In other news:

• By 2030, China will be the largest outbound tourism group with 126 million trips.
• Google says “…not now, not ever” will it become an OTA (Online Travel Agent).
• The average nightly rate for an Airbnb listing in Sydney is AU$157.
• By 2026, travel and tourism is expected to support 370 million jobs, equal to one in nine jobs globally.
• Macau has bounced back strongly from an almost three-year COVID lockdown, attracting 28.2 million visitors in 2023, equal to 71.6% of pre-pandemic levels.

A focus on trust and safety

With the overwhelming majority of travellers booking their own trips online, trust is a valuable commodity for hospitality businesses, particularly given that 20% of online hotel customer reviews may be unreliable or fake. This drives many travellers to the big name OTAs – 23% of Millennials choose OTAs based on ease-of-use over price, user-friendliness and security. And a final word on the subject of safety and security: 67% of travellers rate safety as the number one factor in choosing a destination, while 60% are price driven. In other news:

• 58% of Brits are planning to spend their summer holiday at a traditional seaside resort.
• Between 2022 and 2027 the luxury hotel market is set to grow by US$54.46 billion at a CAGR of 4.5%. 32% of this growth will originate from North America.
• Arrivals into Asia-Pacific are predicted to reach pre-pandemic levels in 2024 or 2025.
• 81% of people frequently or always read reviews before booking a hotel.

A few fun travel industry facts

Some fun facts for this hospitality news round-up. For the hop-heads: Stone Brewing has opened the world’s first beer-themed hotel in San Diego. And move over Vegas, as the Dubai Fountain at the Burj Khalifa is now the world’s tallest performing fountain, capable of firing over 80,000 litres (22,000 gallons) of water into the air at any one time. In other news:

• 65% of surveyed travellers think they will find a better deal on a brand’s website, while 67% felt booking direct was more convenient.
• James Liang, CEO of Chinese OTA Ctrip, finds the idea of an entry into the US market ‘very interesting‘.
• In 2022, one in every five hotel bookings ended up being cancelled, a 33% increase on 2019 figures.
• Airbnb has become the world’s third biggest online travel agency by revenue generated, trailing only Booking.com and Expedia.

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Hotel industry news UK

Tap and go: hospitality businesses in Britain have seen a 196% increase in contactless payments after the limit was increased. And the British Hospitality Association aims to create 100,000 jobs over the next few years as tourism shows itself to be one of the stronger elements of an otherwise flagging UK economy. In other news:

Hospitality industry news in the UK

• In April 2023 hotel room occupancy in Britain reached 77%, finally exceeding pre-pandemic levels (76%).
• 87% of London’s hospitality business owners felt the Night Tube has had a positive impact on their staff.
• London, New York, and Tokyo remain the world’s most attractive city destinations.
• The fifth annual Time Out Index named Edinburgh as the world’s city to visit.
• Agoda surveyed British travellers and found 70% had travelled with their core family at least once in the past year.
• TripAdvisor names Spitbank Fort, in Portsmouth, UK, the quirkiest hotel in the world.

While the rise of the Asian middle class has been viewed as a potential boom for global travel, this isn’t proving the case for Europe. Even before the pandemic and subsequent China lockdown, Chinese travel to the UK was falling 20% year-on-year. Travel to France was down 23.4%, and travel to Istanbul – a city that famously spans both the European and Asian continents, and should therefore be a more accessible choice for Asian travellers – surprisingly experienced the sharpest fall: a decline of 27%.

Hospitality news across Europe

• France is the world’s most visited country, with almost 80 million visitors in 2022.
• Passalacqua, on Lake Como in Italy, was named The World’s Best Hotel for 2023.
• Sweden has opened the world’s first permanent ice hotel, featuring beds that are -5°C.
• In late-2023 Venice announced that it will be the first city in the world to charge an entry fee: €5 per person.

Hotel industry news US

A report on hospitality industry trends suggest that, after years of Airbnb and Vrbo creeping in on traditional hotel territory, the tide is beginning to turn. Looking only at publicly available data, 103,230 rooms are scheduled to open this year in 865 US hotels. New York City, which has been a leader in pushing back against short term rentals, is at risk of being 30,000 hotel rooms short of demand by 2035.

Nevertheless, Airbnb is now the world’s third-largest online travel agency by revenue, behind only Booking.com and Expedia. In other news:

US hotel industry market report

• Stone Brewing opens the world’s first beer-themed hotel in San Diego.
• Business travel made up 24.6% of US tourism spend in 2022.
• A US study found one in three millennials budget more than $5000 for vacations.
• Hotel industry revenues in the US surpass $200 billion.
• The US hotel industry achieved 1.3 billion occupied room nights in 2023.
• A survey has suggested more than half of all Americans take their first unsupervised trip at age 18.
• 83% of female business travellers in the US have reported a safety concern or incident in the past year.

To US traveller behaviours and trends. British holidaymakers continue to have a taste for the US, with New York and Orlando forming the top two most searched destinations on Just the Flight’s Top 20 list. And recently 67% of travellers rated safety as the number one factor in choosing a destination. In other news:

US traveller behaviour report

• London, New York, and Tokyo remain the world’s most attractive city destinations.
• 46% of business travellers choose to book outside their company program and direct with suppliers.

According to a SiteMinder survey, boosting revenue by spending on strategy management was ranked important by 50% of hoteliers in the US. And assisting hotels in their quest to boost revenues were industrious American hospitality workers – the US Travel Association estimates that American workers left a record 768 million vacation days on the table last year, 236 million of which were forfeited completely. In other news:

US market trend report

• The US online hotel booking industry was worth US$47.1 billion in 2023.
• 51% of US guests say they’re more stressed than a year ago – causing 37% to cancel or delay their trip.

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Assitant Manager

Hotel Gran Bilbao

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Hotel industry news Asia

By pure headcount, no continent comes close to Asia in terms of potential impact on the global travel sector. By 2030, China will be the largest outbound tourism group with 126 million trips. But traffic is limited the other way: the number of foreign tourists visiting China remains at a fraction of pre-pandemic levels, with the local tourism sector relying on domestic travel to survive.

Market development and trends in Asia

• Arrivals into Asia-Pacific are predicted to reach pre-pandemic levels in 2024 or 2025.
• The Sanya EDITION opens its own five-acre private ‘ocean’ in China.
• Asia encompasses over half of all global internet users.
• Online conversion rates are lower in Asia than any other continent, but pure headcount means that APAC is level with Europe in terms of absolute conversions.
• AURA the room-service robot has been introduced to the world in Singapore.