Hotels and Resorts
Explore the latest hotel and resort trends, from Airbnb impacts to luxury wellness, and discover how hospitality development is evolving.
Holiday travelers may notice that airport-connected hotels are incorporating more regional touches, from façade to dining. Here are five examples that offer the ultimate luxury, a short walk from guest room to terminal.
The hotel industry in the United States faces complex challenges in 2025, according to Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics for the CoStar Group. During the “State of the U.S. Hotel Industry” presentation at the ULI 2025 Spring Meeting in Denver, Colorado, Freitag highlighted the challenges facing the hotel business amid macroeconomic uncertainty.
Once a sprawling expanse of uncharted land, Las Vegas, Nevada, has evolved into the entertainment capital of the world, a gaming super-hub, and a premier destination for sports. This remarkable transformation didn’t happen overnight; it stemmed from decades of strategic planning, investment, and visionary zoning recommendations.
From iconic implosions to wellness retreats: Explore the massive transformation of the Las Vegas Strip into a premier destination for luxury living.
Real estate investors recognize the need to incorporate physical climate risks—including wildfire, hurricanes, and excessive heat—into their business models as the prevalence and severity of extreme weather events increase. Climate-risk analytics tools have proliferated in recent years to help investors assess, price, and mitigate these physical climate risks. Investors have welcomed these tools but face challenges selecting the right provider—or providers—to meet their business needs.
It’s tough to view a strong economy as bad news. Yet a firmly positive economic projection in ULI’s Real Estate Economic Forecast does not bode well for commercial real estate participants who are hoping for relief in rate cuts from the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Members Only
These 10 hotels embody environmental sensitivity plus energy and water efficiency.
Two years after the start of the global pandemic, the outlook for the U.S. hotel industry is decidedly positive. STR, a CoStar Group company and a global leader in hospitality analytics, continues to report ever-improving metrics in the United States. The prospects for the sector are embodied in six themes.
Eight new hotels are now under construction in Chicago’s central business district, totaling about 1,500 new rooms, according to the latest list from STR Group. Developers are also planning to start construction on more than a dozen other new hotel projects, totaling an additional 3,700 new rooms.
Members Only
Though investor interest in the hospital sector was muted for most of 2020 in response to the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and global travel, the lodging industry is poised to rebound in 2021, according to JLL Hotels & Hospitality’s annual Hotel Investment Outlook.
Ian Wilson, senior vice president of nongaming operations and chief operating officer, Marina Bay Sands, addressed the 2019 ULI Asia Pacific Leadership Convivium, explaining how the resort-casino operator uses data in its operations.
Hotels and office buildings are taking on many of each other’s characteristics in terms of design and use. This confluence has several drivers, among them the evolution of technology, shifts in guest and tenant expectations, and the increasing mobility of the American workforce.
New, tech-based companies create temporary apartment hotels, monetize absorption vacancies, and stimulate urban mixed-use projects.
Wise choices in fixtures, finishes, and functions may draw guests’ attention.
How are tourism trends shaking up the real estate industry?
The InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland Hotel in China’s Songjiang District, near Shanghai, appears modest when approached from ground level because only two storeys project above ground and green roofs help them blend into the surrounding greenery. But when guests step inside, they see the dramatic construction, attached to the rock like a hanging garden.
Everybody is talking about authenticity. It is mentioned practically on a daily basis in the real estate world. But authenticity is more than a buzzword to boost returns. It is a must-have component of successful placemaking.
The hotel industry in Japan is evolving, with new lodging models emerging, some of which incorporate elements of the burgeoning sharing economy. A panel of real estate and hotel experts at the ULI Japan Fall Conference, held in Tokyo in November, discussed the “capsule hotel” and other models in Japan.
According to research by Marcus & Millichap, the accelerating U.S. economy, supported by strong employment growth and rising confidence levels, bodes well for continued hotel property performance. Elevated consumer and business confidence levels will likely buoy room demand through the remainder of the year, keeping occupancy at a record high and supporting growth in revenue per available room.
While America’s South continues on a steady course with a growing population and an increasing number of jobs, officials are acting on some challenges, which include traffic, housing affordability, education needs, and the rising cost of construction.
Experts in hotel development discuss the rising popularity of social spaces in hotels, the role of technology in the hotel experience, the ways guests are shaping in-room furniture design, the competition from Airbnb, the need for “Instagrammable” spaces in hotels, and changing approaches to hotel restaurants.
Florida remains one of the healthiest worldwide hospitality centers. Hotel occupancy in Miami-Dade rose to 87.9 percent in March from 85.7 percent in the same month last year, and the average daily room rate in was also up. At a panel discussion during ULI’s 2018 Florida Summit, two hotel developers shared how their decision to lean into the evolving trends within hospitality and tourism have bred overwhelming success.
To meet the evolving expectations of today’s travelers, new hotels are being infused with active, social spaces that encourage interaction between guests, offer unique experiences with local flavor, and provide healthy lifestyle amenities, said experts speaking at a ULI San Diego/Tijuana event.
Imagine arriving home after a long day at the office and calling room service to have a chef-prepared meal delivered to your door. For residents of Nashville’s new, innovatively designed Aertson Midtown building, that is not wishful thinking. They simply place an order with the signature restaurant of the Kimpton hotel that shares their apartment building.
Set against an urban landscape of concrete, steel, and glass in Tanjong Pagar, Singapore’s central business district, Oasia Hotel Downtown (OHD) stands out with its red silhouette clad in lush greenery. An integrated hotel/office development comprising a 27-story, 314-room business hotel and 100 new-age offices, OHD responds to the government’s vision for the precinct earmarked as the island’s next waterfront city with a mix of business, commercial, and residential activities.
Since Airbnb began to disrupt the U.S. hospitality sector, industry leaders have been thinking about ways to attract previously underserved customers. A number of recently built hotels and resorts combine the space and amenities of a private home with high-end amenities, concierge service, and curated experiences. A 2017 ULI Fall Meeting session presented two recently introduced concepts with distinctly different target markets and price points.
After years of steady growth, the hotel industry is bracing for a tough year. “Growth and revenue are slowing down,” Bruce Baltin, managing director of CBRE Hotels, told executives and experts gathered for ULI’s “Hotel and Resort Development: Next Wave of Innovation” conference in La Costa, California, held in June. “It’s hit a peak. We think we’re at a plateau.”
As competition for the dollars of vacationers and business travelers ratchets up, hotel companies are on a never-ending search for ways to differentiate themselves. Guests are looking for uniqueness, local flavor and history, and bespoke experiences that they can capture and share instantly through social media networks, according to a panel of hotel industry experts at the recent ULI Florida Summit in Miami.
The focus of most panelists at ULI’s Latin America Conference, held in late October, was on the stronger markets, including Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile. There also was optimism about a turnaround in Brazil and Argentina’s most recent election.
Newly confident and deep-pocketed consumers are driving vacation-home sales to levels that have not been seen in a decade, said panelists at the ULI Fall Meeting. But prices have not yet reached previous peaks, and buyers are increasingly cautious and cost-conscious.
