PHOENIX—The hotel industry is in a different place as far as industry cycles go, according to Stonebridge Companies President and CEO Navin Dimond.
Hotel News Now caught up with Dimond at the recent Lodging Conference to talk about the company’s growth thus far in 2017 and growth expectations going into 2018.
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Before Dimond dove into a discussion of Stonebridge’s success, he answered a question heard often in the hotel industry: “Where are we in the cycle?”
“I think we’re in a different place,” he said. “The economy in the United States is very mature. … it’s very similar to Japan … very similar to northern Europe, to western Europe, and we’re just one generation behind what happened in Japan 25 years ago.”
Japan didn’t have a population boom “after the second war,” Dimond said, like America did with the baby boomers, which is why the current economy is similar to where Japan was 25 years ago. He said he expects to see a period of prolonged growth in the industry.
Watch the video below for more of Dimond’s thoughts on the hotel industry in general.
Company highlights
Stonebridge has had a busy 2017 so far in terms of hotel openings.
Stonebridge has opened properties in locations such as Washington, D.C., and Boston, Dimond said, and the company has several hotels under construction around the country that fall under brands such as Moxy, the Autograph Collection and Hyatt Place.
“We’ve got a mix of things going on,” he said. “We’re busy.”
Dimond expects to see more solid growth going into 2018.
“I don’t see a whole lot of difference in where ’17 turned out relative to RevPAR growth and how the hotels performed,” he said. “I think it will be somewhat similar in terms of growth, and I think ’18 should be a good year, as well as ’19.”