LOS ANGELES — Over and over again during the Americas Lodging Investment Summit, hoteliers have shared a muted sense of joy over the fact that even if things haven't returned fully to pre-pandemic norms, the industry has reached a point of greater predictability than seen in recent years.
Many expect it will still take a while until things such as deals pace and corporate transient demand return to the levels seen in the past, but there is still cause for optimism that 2024 will be a solid, if not spectacular year for hotel industry growth.
While interest rates remain elevated, there is hope they could soon begin to creep down, and other major issues — such as the long-term limited availability of workers — seem to be moderating somewhat.
Podcast Recap
Photo of the day
Quote of the Day
“Think about what's going to happen in 10 or 20 or 30 years, what keeps me up at night personally and for my kids and for just humanity as a whole and our industry as well: The robots are surely coming. And [artificial intelligence] is coming. What's going to happen to tens of millions of people who are going to be completely without a job.”
— Sam Nazarian, Chairman and CEO of SBE Entertainment Group
Editors’ Takeaways
Day Two at the conference really put the “AI” in “ALIS,” since just about every panel of speakers touched on the untapped potential this technology may bring to the hotel industry. I moderated a general session titled “Boardroom Outlook” about labor and personnel trends in the industry and I asked my panelists — executives at major hotel companies — how they’re using AI today and how they’re thinking about using it in the future.
The good news is that no, the robot revolution isn’t taking over the hotel industry. What was interesting to hear was about how hotel executives are putting data and metrics to everything, including how they use AI. Speakers from management companies talked about using AI to optimize shift distribution and productivity. Others spoke about using the technology to streamline contract review and even resume review.
Not a single executive on the panel said they were in any way worried or scared about it. What stood out to me, though, was when Choice Hotels International CEO Pat Pacious said the hotel industry can’t wait around for tech companies to build AI tools; companies must learn and try it themselves.
The hotel industry traditionally isn’t one that is a rapid consumer of early tech, but just how much can they do themselves? The field is so new; only time will tell.
—Stephanie Ricca, editorial director
@HNN_Steph
No one wants to predict that 2024 will be a huge year for the hotel industry, in terms of either growth in performance metrics or deals, for fear of being wrong, but I'll stake my place in the discourse right now and say it will likely be a more active year than 2023. While everyone is cautious due to all of the unexpected curveballs seen in recent years and the unpredictability inherent in an election year, there are too many stars aligning for the industry to not have some sort of rebound.
I feel like this is especially true in the deals space. If we saw even a marginal drop in interest rates and — more importantly — just a smidgen more confidence from lenders, that would open up a pathway for deal activity we haven't seen in a bit. It's important to remember that 2023 experienced some historic disruptions in the banking sector, and it'd be crazy to assume the same thing will happen this year.
So stay tuned because I think this could be a year that pleasantly surprises many based on what I'm hearing at the conference.
—Sean McCracken, news editor
@HNN_Sean
In my conversations with industry executives and thought leaders during the conference, I asked several of them how they're feeling about the state of the industry and what they're hearing from colleagues. The responses I received were that people were feeling "cautiously optimistic" to fully optimistic again. It seems such a strange concept, especially so soon after a pandemic, but the industry has generally pulled through, and then some.
I get some of the reluctance by some to be the glass-half-full types. It seems too early. Something else has to go wrong. It's not that it was too easy, because nothing about the last few years was easy, but all the hard work people put into the industry's recovery is paying off now.
—Bryan Wroten, senior reporter
@HNN_Bryan