Independent Hotels in the U.S. Pressured by the Big Brands
Photo Caption: A common area at the Bluebird by Lark hotel in Lake Placid that opened this month. Photo by Matt Kisaday. Source: Lark Hospitality.
Skift Take
Brands have overtaken independents in the U.S., and that trend looks set to repeat itself abroad. But independents have held up better than expected in the past year. Perhaps the U.S. market is reaching an equilibrium.
Some industry observers speculated that the pandemic would speed up consolidation of the hotel sector, as owners of independent hotels might find cost and other pressures too difficult and would essentially sell out to the big brands. So what was the state of the independent hotel sector in 2022, as the pandemic subsided, according to just-released numbers?
In recent years, only about one-third of the roughly 60,000 hotels in the U.S. have remained independent, making the country arguably the world's most consolidated hotel market.
The gap between independents and brands truly yawns when you look at the hotel development pipeline. As of late December, unaffiliated hotels representing approximately 30,000 rooms were in construction — a growth of about 2 percent, according to STR, the gold standard for hotel performance benchmarking. Yet branded and franchise hotels had a whopping 131,000 rooms under construction.
"We are becoming a country of brands,
