LITTLE ROCK — Although the domestic hotel industry is on the cusp of a widespread recovery, business travelers who have gotten used to low rates, the ability to book at the last minute and perks such as free Wi-Fi and parking are less enthusiastic.
Company travel managers are finding that negotiating corporate rates for 2013 is much more challenging.
Eileen Kelly, travel liaison at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, said she had already run into the higher rates. “It’s not making my job easier,” she said. “It’s been a buyer’s market for the past three to four years.”
Now, the tide is turning toward sellers, she said, with hotel operators seeking to raise her rate by 8 to 10 percent. “It’s going to be tough this year, because it’s their ballgame.”
Hotels in major cities, especially top-tier ones, have already recovered.
“There are some markets where real negotiations are going on, and rates will go up as much as 10 percent,” said Scott D. Berman, principal and U.S. industry leader for the hospitality and leisure practice at Pricewaterhouse-Coopers.
Experts predict that this recovery will spread throughout the country next year, particularly in upscale hotels that tend to be frequented by business travelers.
“What we expect to see happen next year is kind of a continuation of what’s happening this year,” said Fred Deschamps, a vice president at Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group. “What we’ve seen this year is the big urban centers are pulling the U.S. market ahead. They’re a freight train pulling the U.S. market along.”
Woodworth said demand for rooms began increasing as early as 2010, shortly after the recession ended, but that the drop in travel had been so sharp that occupancy levels were only now approaching traditional norms.
As a result, outside of a handful of top markets, prices have not yet caught up to rising demand. “Rates have not come back as fast as they have in prior cycles,” Berman said.
But experts say the industry is approaching the tipping point for rates. According to PKF Hospitality Research, the average hotel occupancy rate over the long term is just under 62 percent. PKF predicts that the industry will end 2012 with average occupancy of 61.4 percent and will pass the historical average by the middle of next year.
“We literally had had a year and a half of consistent decline in lodging demand,” said PKF President Mark Woodworth. “Not only was the length of it troubling, but the depth of it was damaging. What we need to have happen is for scarcity to return to the marketplace.”
Berman said that the scarcity of hotel rooms is a result of the ongoing reluctance by lenders to commit to new hotel construction projects. “In this cycle, with the banks standing on the sidelines, not making as many loans as they have historically, supply growth has diminished,” he said.
That means business travelers will find fewer rooms available, especially in major cities, Berman said. Since it takes a couple of years, at minimum, to build a full-service hotel from the ground up, “consumers will face more sold-out nights than they have been,” he said.
Hotels are also looking to improve their bottom lines by increasing fees for extras such as Internet access, breakfast and parking.
Last year, hotels in the United States collected a record $1.85 billion in fees and surcharges, according to Bjorn Hanson, divisional dean of the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management at New York University. This year, that amount is forecast to grow to $1.95 billion as a result of higher occupancy and higher fees.
Adept travel managers can often negotiate to eliminate the fees, especially if the hotel is pushing for a sharp increase in the room rate.
Woodworth said the trend was toward a seller’s market. “The number of freebies, the amount of discounting has clearly been dissipating,” he said. “The level of discounting on the room rate is quick-
Business, Pages 77 on 11/11/2012