Hotels Reap More Profits But Aren’t Yet Winning the Direct Booking Wars

CBRE Hotels' Americas Research recently released its 2017 edition of Trends in the Hotel Industry and, perhaps, the biggest trend in the report is that U.S. hotels are being much smarter about their finances than ever before. For the seventh year in a row, the U.S. hotels CBRE surveyed saw an overall increase in profits, even though revenue growth has slowed. In 2016, occupancy rates rose only 0.2 percent and average daily rate (ADR) grew at only 2.5 percent, and total operating revenue was up 2.4 percent for the average hotel in CBRE's survey sample. But because the surveyed hoteliers only let operating expenses grow at an average rate of 1.6 percent, they were able to see gross operating profits rise by 3.7 percent. R. Mark Woodworth, senior managing director of CBRE Hotels' Americas Research, said: "Clearly, U.S. hotel operators saw the threat of stagnant or declining occupancy and slow ADR growth and reacted by controlling ex