ATLANTA — Amid the backdrop of the 2026 Hunter Hotel Investment Conference, the co-hosts of "Tell Me More: A Hospitality Data Podcast" shared a quick gut check on U.S. hotel industry health at this point in the year.
So far so good — at least for the first two months of 2026, said Isaac Collazo, STR's senior director of analytics.
"The hotel industry is looking much better," Collazo said, citing STR's February data. "We've already seen two better months than we thought. The sea is changing a little bit."
Jan Freitag, CoStar's national director of hospitality analytics, raised one question that was top of conference attendees' minds: Will rising gas prices and other effects of a war in Iran ding travel in 2026?
"That trickles down through the economy, and if inflation rates continue to be elevated, that takes money out of everybody's pocket, including people who want to travel," he said.
Another debate point: The effects a bifurcated K-shaped economy continue to have long-term on the U.S. hotel industry. Freitag and Collazo both expressed worry that high gas prices might keep the industry bifurcated longer than originally hoped, but they pointed to Tourism Economics data reinforcing that the majority of high-value travel isn't too affected by fluctuating fuel costs.
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