Hotel construction pipeline shrinks

The national pipeline of new hotel construction declined in the third quarter of 2008, the first quarterly decline in five years, according to a report released yesterday by Lodging Econometrics. At the end of the third quarter, there were 5,652 hotel projects in the national pipeline, a 4 percent decline from the previous quarter, for a total of 740,272 hotel rooms. The fall-offs were most significant for projects scheduled to start in the next 12 months. Out of the projects already in the pipeline in the third quarter, 360 were canceled or postponed. New York still has one of the highest pipeline counts, but there were no specific numbers available. The pipeline decline will likely continue for the next several years, the report said. TRD