274 | Construction in a Pandemic: Hotel builders face unexpected challenges

In the first quarter of this year, more than 140 new hotels opened in the U.S., reported Lodging Econometrics.

In March, the U.S. had 150,000 rooms under construction, said STR. It’s the highest end-of-month total the company has reported.

Jan Freitag, senior vice president of lodging insights at STR, said he expects hotel construction to continue throughout the year. But because of the low customer demand caused by the coronavirus crisis, hotel developers are not in a rush to open and projects will spend more time in construction.

Also impacting the timelines are the availability of building materials due to supply chain disruptions and challenges in finding skilled laborers who want to work during a pandemic.

This episode of Lodging Leaders podcast looks at the current state of hotel construction and explores what the future might hold with regard to new development in the shadow of COVID-19. We interviewed construction company executives and hotel developers to get an idea of the challenges they’re facing in getting a job completed and opened.

Resources and Links

• Larry Spelts of The Indigo Road Hospitality Group
• Azim Saju of Hotel Development and Management Group
• Bill Wilhelm of R.D. Olson Construction
• Stephanie Hall of DAG Construction
• Next Generation in Lodging webinar