More US Hotels in Development

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The U.S. hotel development pipeline has increased 11.3 percent since May a year ago, including 2,677 projects totaling 322,963 rooms, according to the new STR Pipeline report. 

The data includes projects in the construction, final planning and planning stages. The firm reported a 22.8 percent increase in the rooms under construction. The Pacific, East South Central and Mountain regions reported increases of more than 30 percent in rooms under construction.  

"The U.S. development pipeline continued to steadily increase in May...STR is expecting full-year 2013 net room supply growth of around one percent, about half the long-term annual growth rate," senior VP of operations at STR Bobby Bowers said in the report.

The report comes on the heels of a presentation last week by Mark Woodworth of PKF Hospitality Research, who argued that the hotel industry in the U.S. is lagging behind the economic recovery.

Highlights from the report: 

• The Mountain region reported the largest increase in rooms in the total active pipeline, rising 40.7 percent over last year to 36,718 rooms.

• Three other regions reported increases of more than 20 percent in rooms in the total active pipeline: the New England region (+36.7 percent with 11,476 rooms); the West North Central region (+28.1 percent with 16,878 rooms); and the Pacific region (+24.9 percent with 38,900 rooms).

• The East South Central region (-1.2 percent with 18,270 rooms) and the West South Central region (-1.0 percent with 49,189 rooms) reported the only decreases in rooms in the total active pipeline.