ATLANTA — The hotel industry is doing "OK," according to Vision Hospitality Group CEO and founder Mitch Patel. All things considered, that's a win.
Uncertainty has been the word that has defined the tenor of the hospitality industry over the past calendar year. From tariff-related cost increases to decreased international inbound demand to the price of oil and gasoline currently spiking, there has been no shortage of headwinds, Patel said in a video interview at the 2026 Hunter Conference.
Given that backdrop, U.S. hotel performance could be much worse.
"I don't know if anyone could design a set of policies that could be worse for our industry," he said. "And even though all of that took place ... we are still doing — the key word is 'OK.' OK meaning either we're flat or growing, and our portfolio this year is actually up a little bit. It's just really remarkable how resilient that we are."
Chattanooga, Tennessee-based Vision Hospitality Group manages and owns a portfolio of 44 hotels, with a heavy presence in the Southeast U.S.
There's a difference between operating and developing hotels amid an uncertain economic market. Hotel operations are heavily affected by the current state of the economy, whereas with development, the focus has to be on the future.
It's certainly easier to get a development deal to pencil when the economy is doing better, but it could be years before a hotel opens from the time the project begins. It's impossible to know what the U.S. economy will look like years into the future, but Patel said he believes that in 2029 and beyond, it'll "be in a much better place than today."
"Yes, you have to factor in what's happening in the marketplace today to justify opening a hotel a couple of years from now, but we're not going to be open today," he said. "We need to look into the future ... it could take sometimes a year-plus in design and entitlement, and then another year and a half to two years to build a hotel, so it could take as much as three years to open a hotel."
For more from Vision Hospitality's Mitch Patel, watch the video or listen to the podcast embedded above.