It’s too soon to tell Hurricane Sandy’s impact on hoteliers’ business this week

The potential impact on the hotel industry, as measured by performance, closures and destruction, was still unclear as of Wednesday morning. Data from STR, parent company of HotelNewsNow.com, offered at least a peek at the effects felt in New York, parts of which were still suffering from flooding and power outages at press time.

“Although typically the disruption impact to hotels during a natural disaster is often at least partially offset by reconstruction activity in the affected area (as was the case in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina), it remains to be seen how much of the negative impact will be offset by recovery efforts this time,” Bhalla said. At least in the near term, he said he expects Hurricane Sandy to potentially have 50 to 100 basis points of impact to fourth-quarter U.S. hotel revenue-per-available-room growth.