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1. Blackstone nears $130 million deal for San Francisco Four Seasons
Blackstone is close to buying the 277-key Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco on Market Street for $130 million, the Wall Street Journal reports. It would be Blackstone's first San Francisco hotel acquisition in a decade.
The hospitality market has been slow to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, lagging other major U.S. markets. For the first nine months of 2025, the San Francisco metro area's hotel occupancy rate reached 70%, up from below 50% in 2021, and its revenue per available room this year was $157.36, up from $67.52 in 2021, according to CoStar data.
2. US government shutdown ends
The shutdown of the U.S. government came to an end Wednesday after President Donald Trump signed the Senate-written spending bill the House passed earlier in the day 222 to 209, the Wall Street Journal reports. It extends funding for the federal government through Jan. 30 and includes full-year funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, military construction and Congress.
The spending bill also includes guarantees to reverse the federal layoffs enacted by the Trump administration during the shutdown and a moratorium on future cuts. It will also provide paychecks for federal employees, including air traffic controllers.
What remains is a vote on the expiring enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act used by millions of Americans.
3. Hotel executives confident in US travel demand
Even though U.S. consumer sentiment is at its lowest in three and a half years, hotel brand and real estate investment trust executives speaking during their companies' third-quarter earnings calls expressed confidence in the resiliency of travel demand, reports CoStar News Hotels' Sean McCracken.
"As I lift up and think about the opportunity ahead, I remain optimistic about the next few years," Hilton President and CEO Chris Nassetta said. "We continue to believe that in the U.S. lower interest rates, a more favorable regulatory environment, certainty on tax policy and a significant investment cycle will result in accelerated economic growth and meaningful increases in travel demand. This, when paired with limited industry supply growth, should drive stronger RevPAR growth over the next several years."
4. UK economy barely grew in third quarter
The United Kingdom's economy grew by 0.1% during the third quarter, CNBC reports, citing numbers from the Office for National Statistics. It grew by 0.3% in the second quarter.
“Growth slowed further in the third quarter of the year with both services and construction weaker than in the previous period. There was also a further contraction in production,” Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said.
In a statement, UKHospitality Chair Kate Nicholls said, "It’s clear that the U.K. has a consistent growth problem and, alongside waning consumer confidence, it is hitting high streets hard. Hospitality is being taxed out, with rising costs continuing to hit every part of a business. The £3.4 billion in additional annual cost inflicted on our sector in April made investing in and growing a business almost impossible. Instead, it has led to job losses, cancelled investment, price increases and business failure."
5. US flight disruptions to continue for near term
Even though the U.S. federal government is reopening, it will take time to restore all disrupted services, including those affecting air travel, USA Today reports. Roughly 13,000 air traffic controllers worked without pay for more than a month, and federal authorities reported an increase in air traffic controller absences during that period.
The Federal Aviation Administration required cutbacks last week in the number of flights at the 40 major airports in the U.S. Reductions of 6% will remain in place until more air traffic controllers are back on the job.
"If the FAA safety team determines the trend lines are moving in the right direction, we’ll put forward a path to resume normal operation," U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement Wednesday.