Every year in March, the city of Houston brings in an influx of visitors to its annual three-week Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
But the 21-day sports and concert series isn't the only demand driver that typically makes March one of the top months for hotel demand in the city — business conferences and spring break trips also bring in visitors every year.
"March is a great month for Houston," said Navid Karedia, co-founder and principal of SLTX Capital, a hospitality-focused private equity firm based in the Houston area. "There's a lot of things happening here in March, just getting out of January and February, which are always slow months here in Houston. Having that rodeo [kick] off the year is great."
Didio Pequeno, CoStar's director of hospitality market analytics, said that in March 2025, Houston had 67.7% occupancy, which was the highest month of the entire year — a trend that's been common in previous years.
This March was particularly strong, with Visit Houston reporting that hotel bookings are up 15% this month compared to March 2025. While Houston airports has been disproportionately plagued by long lines and other delays due to the partial government shutdown, the effect to hotel occupancy is yet to be determined.
"It's been building for years, but this month of March was something special," Mayor John Whitmire told Houston's local ABC affiliate. "It's proven to be the best month of March in Houston's history. Houston's been discovered."
Rodeo rounds up demand
More than 2.6 million people visited the rodeo this year, with the highest daily attendee count reaching over 185,000. The rodeo has evolved over its 90-year history from simply selling cattle to include activities that range from carnival rides, watching baby lambs and pigs take their first steps at the birthing center, tasting more than 75 award-winning wines at the wine garden, or browsing hundreds of shops and food vendors selling items such as chicken fried lobster, a bacon cheeseburger corn dog or homemade gumbo from Tina Knowles, the mother of hometown superstar Beyonce.
Every night after rodeo athletes compete in events such as bull riding and barrel racing, an entertainer, such as Lizzo, Creed, Kelly Clarkson or Tim McGraw, performs for a crowd of up to 70,000 on the dirt's rotating stage to end the show.
While the event mostly attracts locals, nearly a third of rodeo goers were visitors to the greater Houston area, including travelers representing 75 countries, according to the 2024 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Economic Impact Study.
With that many people coming into town, it's absolutely a demand generator for hotels in the city — but especially for ones in the submarkets nearest to the rodeo grounds, said Karedia, adding that there's just not a notable citywide compression during March as it pertains to the rodeo.
But for the hotels near the rodeo, which takes place at NRG Park, a multi-building complex sitting on 350 acres southwest of downtown Houston, it's "highly underrated as far as demand generators across the country," said Lisa Fuentes, vice president of strategy at ZaZa Hospitality.
"It's three straight weeks of, for us, sustained occupancy lift. The whole event is so immersive," she said, adding that the rodeo attracts attendees from those looking for family fun to corporate entertainment opportunities.
Fuentes said the company's two hotels each see demand driven from the rodeo, but the Hotel ZaZa Houston Museum District, located 3 miles from NRG and directly on Houston's MetroRail, is especially primed to benefit each year.
"I think the energy of the rodeo season is something we want guests to feel on property, even if their schedule doesn't allow them to spend the whole day on the rodeo grounds," she said. "It's a great opportunity to showcase Houston's personality, and the ZaZa is the right backdrop for that."
At both hotels, Fuentes said the team leans into the rodeo season to extend the experience within the hotel for guests or even locals who want to eat dinner or have a drink before heading to the event.
Downtown Houston's potential
Not all parts of Houston are created equally. Some submarkets in the greater Houston area continue to struggle, especially ones that don't see the lift from being nearby the rodeo grounds or downtown's convention activity.
"Certain pockets of Houston are doing far better than others," Karedia said. "I think it always depends on hotels. It's all about your basis and what submarket you're in. And so I think overall, Houston is in a good spot."
Pequeno said that of Houston's 11 submarkets, 10 saw a decline in revenue per available room last year — the exception being the Galleria area, which is home to the Houston Galleria and a significant portion of office space.
Downtown Houston shows a lot of promise, and Karedia mentioned a few ongoing projects that give him hope the submarket will see more demand. Baseball is starting up again, and the Houston Astros owner Jim Crane previously announced a fan-focused redevelopment project, but details and a timeline still haven't materialized.
The George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston is currently undergoing phase one of its $2 billion expansion and renovation project. The initial project includes expanding the footprint of the center.
Lastly, the Main Street Promenade project, a $12 million, pedestrian-friendly redevelopment plan, is expected to complete ahead of the World Cup.
"There's a lot of synergy, there's a lot of excitement in downtown that we're bullish on," Karedia said. "I think there's going to be continued demand in the coming years in downtown."
Karedia's firm has three downtown Houston hotels in its pipeline. The dual-branded Holiday Inn Express and Staybridge Suites Houston Downtown is expected to open next month and its Canopy by Hilton Downtown Houston — a historical renovation project — is in final planning with construction expected to begin this summer.
Even though the downtown submarket's RevPAR was down 1.7% last year compared to 2024, citywide RevPAR was actually down 8%, Pequeno said, and the submarket ranked as the third-best performing in the city.
In February, according to Houston First, the downtown submarket had nearly 70% occupancy, an increase of 4%, while average daily rate rose 5% to $266 and RevPAR was up almost 10% to $185.
Another impact that Fuentes observed is that while Houston's downtown convention area is undergoing renovations, its current phase is less disruptive than ongoing projects to Dallas and Austin's projects, which have each city's convention center partially or completely closed, respectively. This means that Houston is well-positioned to attract convention business otherwise hosted in those cities.
Earlier this year, Houston hosted the National Cheer Association All-Star National Championships, which usually is hosted in Dallas, she said.
"I think Houston has a bigger opportunity to define itself as like a quintessential Texas destination for inbound, domestic and international travelers," she said.
The future of hospitality in Houston
With Houston's March momentum, its opportunity to attract displaced convention business and its upcoming role as a World Cup host city this summer, the market has a huge opportunity.
Historically, Houston has attracted a lot of business travelers, but leisure demand is growing, Fuentes said. Additionally, while Houston has been known as the Energy Capital of the World, its business has diversified, making the city's economy less attached to the cyclical nature of the energy industry.
"Houston is so much more than what meets the eye. People maybe have a perception of Houston that I would say often ... sells us short, right," Fuentes said. "It might have been a place where you used to come for business and left when the work was done. But today, there's so much more to taste and experience and explore."
While demand might be increasing, Karedia said he's still focused on what's happening for the transactions market and with development.
"Houston has no zoning, so the biggest obstacle that we deal with is a lot of saturation, and I think we've seen that over the years," he said.
"Since COVID, people aren't aggressively building as much in Houston," he added. "So, the opportunity lies in acquisitions. But as the market continues to improve, I think we'll start to see that again."
As native or longtime Houstonians, both hoteliers agreed that the upcoming World Cup will provide a lift in demand for the city, but, perhaps more importantly, will put a spotlight on what Houston has to offer visitors.
"As a Houstonian that's been born and raised in Houston my entire life, it's a way for us to showcase our city to the world," Karedia said.