30 Percent Jump in U.S. Hotel Rooms under Construction

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The number of hotel rooms under construction in the U.S. increased 31 percent in January, compared to a year ago.

The hotel development pipeline includes 2,966 projects with 361,299 rooms, according to the STR's January pipeline report.

The number of rooms in the total active pipeline - construction, final planning and planning stages -- increased 17.6 percent from January 2013.

"Upscale and Upper Midscale segments continue to dominate all phases of the active U.S. development pipeline," said Bobby Bowers, senior VP of operations at STR. "With nearly 64,000 rooms currently under construction, the two segments combined accounted for more than two of every three U.S. hotel rooms currently under construction."

The Upper Upscale segment ranked third with almost 8,000 rooms under construction, an increase of more than 12 percent compared to the prior year.

More from the report:

• All STR Chain Scale segments, with Luxury the lone exception, registered double-digit increases in room construction activity, versus January 2013.

• Among the Chain Scale segments, the Upper Upscale segment reported the largest increase in rooms in the total active pipeline, rising 61.6 percent over January 2013 to 24,783 rooms.

• Two other segments reported increases in rooms in the total active pipeline of more than 15 percent: the Upscale segment (+18.9 percent to 97,938 rooms) and the Upper Midscale segment (+16.3 percent to 102,496 rooms). The Luxury segment was the only segment to report a decrease in rooms in the total active pipeline, falling 3.7 percent to 7,645 rooms.

• Four segments reported increases in rooms under construction of more than 20 percent: the Midscale segment (+51.1 percent to 5,100 rooms); the Upper Midscale segment (+46.1 percent to 28,842 rooms); the Upscale segment (+35.7 percent to 34,989 rooms); and the Economy segment (+20.9 percent to 1,167 percent). The Luxury segment fell 3.3 percent in rooms under construction to 4,577 rooms.