The hotel-building flurry that accompanied the late bubble years is finally winding down. It took a long time for this to happen because planning and building a new hotel takes years and is hard to interrupt mid-stream. But a slowdown in new projects has led to a 36 percent decline in the number of hotel rooms on the way, either in planning or construction, compared to a year ago, according to a report in Hotel News Now. The decline was largest in Las Vegas, where some projects were actually canceled, creating a 75 percent decline.
The decline in hotel-building is good news for hotel operators, who have been squeezed by a sharp decline in travel that hit in 2008. Cutting rates hasn’t been enough to get people to travel again, but at least the amount of new competition will be a little less.
