Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels said in a report released yesterday that revenue per available room in the U.S. will bottom out in 2010 before rebounding and reaching a record level in 2013. The company’s “FocusOn: Outlook for RevPAR Turnaround” report includes a five-year forecast that indicates RevPAR will reach US$68.28 in 2013. JLLH expects U.S. RevPAR to decline 12.1 percent this year, average daily rate to fall 7.4 percent and occupancy to drop 5.1 percent.
The number of members in hotel guest-loyalty programs has reached 161.9 million—a 26-percent year-over-year increase, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based company said in its 2009 Loyalty Census. Overall membership in travel and hospitality industry loyalty reward programs has climbed to 556 million, according to the 2009 COLLOQUY Loyalty Census, a study that measures the scope of U.S. loyalty marketing in 2007 and 2008. The breakdown on 2009 Loyalty Census numbers for other segments of the travel and hospitality sector: Airline frequent flyer programs 277.4 million, up 9 percent over 2007 census); and Gaming reward programs 106.0 million, up 37 percent.
Revenue per available room in the extended-stay hotel segment declined 14.4 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008. However, performance measures indicate that the segment is experiencing smaller declines than the overall US hotel industry, according to The Highland Group’s “The US Extended-Stay Lodging Report: First Quarter 2009.” Despite a 6.6-percent increase in supply compared with a year ago, extended-stay hotels did not discount rates as heavily as during the last hotel downturn, but the decline in occupancy was greater, the Atlanta-based company said. At 61.3 percent, average occupancy was the lowest ever reported in the first quarter.
April foreclosure activity was up less than 1 percent from March, but 32 percent higher than April 2008, according to RealtyTrac, an Irvine, California-based research organization. Our friends at The Real Estate Channel report that one in every 374 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing in April. Despite an 18 percent decrease in foreclosure activity from the previous month, Nevada continued to post the nation's highest state foreclosure rate in April, with one in every 68 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing—more than five times the national average. Other states with the most foreclosure activity: Florida, California, Arizona, Utah, Georgia, Illinois, Colorado and Ohio—although the foreclosure rates in Illinois, Colorado and Ohio were below the national average.
Manhattan’s retail paradise isn’t avoiding the recession. Its retail vacancy rate rose to 11.2 percent in the first quarter, the highest it has been since the early 1990s, according to CBRE Econometric Advisors, a unit of the CB Richard Ellis Group. In an article in the New York Times, experts talk about how vacant storefronts have become advertising vehicles. At first, advertisers saw storefront advertising as a poor man’s billboard — that is, a bad thing. Now, they see it as a poor man’s billboard — that is, brilliantly frugal.
Compiled by Jeff Higley
