A new report by data firm Lodging Econometrics shows that Dallas-Fort Worth is on pace to set a new record for new hotel room construction nationally.
As reported by the Dallas Morning News, the DFW area led the country in the hotel construction pipeline in the third quarter, bringing 174 new hotels to the market, combining for 20,676 rooms.
The area ranked first in hotel development back in April. The report from Lodging Econometrics at the time reported the metro has 165 hotel projects spanning 19,730 total rooms in the first quarter of the year.
The only metros that came close back in April were Atlanta with 135 projects, Los Angeles with 123 projects, and New York with 122 projects. The same thing has happened again, as Atlanta is second behind Dallas-Fort Worth at 139 projects and Los Angeles sits at third in the nation with 118.
This means that just between the first and third quarter of this year hotel construction in Dallas-Fort Worth ramped up by over 5.4 percent. Back in July, the metro also bounced back to pre-pandemic levels and briefly reached the highest hotel occupancy in the nation compared to 2019 at 74.1 percent.
The trend of adding hotels appears likely to continue in DFW.
“Dallas also has the largest project count for hotel projects in the early planning stage, standing at 88 projects/9,931 rooms,” Lodging Econometrics’ analysts said in the report.
The rapid growth and recovery of the Dallas-Fort Worth market have been driven mostly by Fort Worth, which has already been on pace to rebound to pre-pandemic levels since June of this year.
Experts weigh in that although Dallas is more reliant on the harder-hit segment of corporate travel compared with Fort Worth proper, it is still expected to recover by the end of the year, especially as the population goes up and more travel restrictions become looser.
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— James Bell