After a sluggish few years, an overwhelming majority of hospitality executives now hold a bullish view of the marketplace for 2011, according to the DLA Piper 2011 Hospitality Outlook Survey. Highlighted results include:
- 88 percent of respondents describe their 12-month outlook for the U.S. hospitality industry as “bullish,” nearly tripling the bullish sentiment from 2010
- 82 percent of respondents expect hotel asset values to rise during the next year, compared with only 20 percent of respondents in 2010
- Nine out of 10 respondents believe that market conditions have created good buying opportunities for well-capitalized investors, led by opportunities in the upscale and luxury sectors
- Respondents expect REITs (51 percent) and private equity (40 percent) investors to dominate the U.S. hospitality investment landscape in 2011
- 37 percent of respondents expect that their hotel debt will be refinanced or restructured in 2011, up from 31 percent in 2010
- 69 percent of respondents report that TripAdvsior and other social media, including Twitter and Facebook, have changed the way they interact with guests
- Despite a heightened sense of bedbug paranoia among travelers across the country, the overwhelming majority of respondents (85 percent) report that fears over bedbugs did not negatively impact their operations in the past year
- The majority of respondents (65 percent) expect China to continue its dominance as the largest foreign investor in the US hospitality industry
