The national hotel and motel industry could see the construction of more midscale-sized properties in 2018, responding to what is being described as an underserved market segment.
That’s the consensus view from a recent roundtable discussion sponsored by the magazine Hotel Management in New York.
Industry leaders at the roundtable said that such projects may prove easier to come by in the year ahead because of a greater availability of funding from backers who tend to regard midscale projects as less risky.
Such projects could also become more prevalent because the industry, focused in recent years on significantly larger projects, has put less emphasis on midscale development and construction, resulting in a pent-up demand among an estimated 14 million underserved travelers.
Areas that may be the most likely to prove lucrative for such projects include airports, spaces nears colleges and university campuses, and, of course, markets adjacent to highways.
Although worried about a national shortage of contractors and subcontractors to take on any new midscale projects, industry experts believe the dynamic for building such new properties is the most promising since the 1980s.
By Garry Boulard
