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1. Marriott Teases New Midscale Brand
During a fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 earnings call, Marriott International President and CEO Anthony Capuano said the company is "working on a new U.S. transient midscale brand for both new build and conversions."
Capuano also talked on the call about the groundbreaking for another of the company's new brands, StudioRes, which is a new-build, midscale, extended-stay offering.
Marriott's full-year 2023 revenue per available room increased by 15% over 2022, and net rooms grew 4.7%.
2. Manhattan Hotels Enjoy Consistent High Occupancies
The latest edition of PWC's Manhattan Lodging Index shows the market continues to enjoy high hotel occupancy, but metric growth is decelerating.
The fourth-quarter 2023 report notes "lower-priced hotels benefited from the customer's level of rate fatigue being felt in the market, with [average daily rate] growth levels for midscale properties triple that of higher-priced hotels in Q4. 2023 [Revenue per available room] experienced a year-over-year increase of 16.5%, with Q3 seeing an increase of 13.6% and Q4 being up 11.5%."
PWC Managing Director Warren Marr said Manhattan fundamentals and price compression are expected to be strong with "minimal hotel room supply additions over the next several years."
3. Consumer Prices Increase More Than Expected in January
New data from the U.S. Labor Department shows the consumer price index increased 0.3% in January, pushing the 12-month change up to 3.1%, CNBC reports. Both of those figures exceeded economist expectations. A Dow Jones survey projected a monthly increase of 0.2% and an annual increase of 2.9%.
This could potentially push back the Federal Reserve's plans to begin cutting interest rates as it pursues 2% annual inflation.
4. Istanbul Named Most Visited City in the World
Istanbul had more than 20 million visitors in 2023 and has been named the most visited city in the world by Euromonitor. Arrivals to the city increased 26% from 2022 to 2023.
Second on the list was London, which drew 18.8 million visitors, a 17% increase.
New York was the only American city to make the top 10 list, with an 11% year-over-year increase to 11 million visitors.
5. San Francisco on the Hook For Housing Homeless in Hotels
The San Francisco Chronicle reports the city of San Francisco could be on the hook for $190 million in costs from housing homeless people in hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally the Federal Emergency Management Agency was expected to pick up at least a portion of that tab.
"FEMA first said it would reimburse 75% of the costs, then told counties it would actually cover the entire cost of the non-congregate shelter program through July 1, 2022, and 90% afterward, through May 11, 2023," the newspaper reports. "In October, however, FEMA officials sent a letter to the California Office of Emergency Services saying that it would not reimburse many hotel stays of longer than 20 days between June 11, 2021, and May 11, 2023. That’s big money for California and San Francisco — as much as $114 million for San Francisco and more than $300 million for the state as a whole."