NASHVILLE, Tennessee — The latest U.S. hotel industry forecast from CoStar and Tourism Economics reflects strong performance in the first half of this year, and there's always more story behind the data.
Co-hosts of the "Tell Me More: A Hospitality Data Podcast" recorded a special episode at the 2026 Hotel Data Conference, highlighting a few surprises and takeaways gleaned from the annual event.
"The biggest news is that we raised our forecast, and that shouldn't be a surprise," said STR's senior director of analytics Isaac Collazo. "Most surprising was the strength outside the World Cup markets."
Jan Freitag, CoStar's national director of hospitality analytics, said the next year should be "smooth sailing" from a revenue perspective. Despite tough 2027 comparisons in June and July to this year's outstanding hotel performance, the U.S. should still notch revenue per available room next year.
In the episode, the co-hosts also touch on interesting data points around event-based travel, profitability and forecasting frameworks for the future.
