Lodging Econometrics (LE) has revised its forecast for new constructed hotel openings downward for 2011 and 2012, as the  banking crisis continues to strain the availability of construction financing. Next year, a revised 562 new hotels/57,482 rooms are now projected to open, while the forecast for 2012 lowered to 515 hotels/52,213 rooms. This year, the figures have been adjusted downward only slightly to 698 hotels/77,401 rooms, of which 519 hotels/56,007 rooms have already opened during the first three quarters.

The lack of financing and funds will have a large effect on the number of new hotel/motel openings over the next three years. Projects are already in the works that cannot migrate forward to start construction. The number of projects that start construction in a given quarter reached a cyclical low in Q2. Also, the total number of projects presently in the pipeline, at 487 projects/62,041 rooms, is the lowest LE has ever recorded. Projects scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months, at 1,218 projects/129,356 rooms, are at their lowest level since the end of 2004. The result of these lower metrics is that hotel openings coming online as new supply in 2011-2013 will be at rates lower than at any time since the early 1990s.