Predictions 2016: Valley learns to live luxuriously and eat sloppy with new hotels, restaurants
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I’ve only been with the Phoenix Business Journal for about four months now, but I’d like to think I have an inkling as to what will happen in the hospitality/tourism and retail/restaurant industries in 2016.
My predecessors preferred to make predictions in fairly broad strokes, and while the following predictions are more or less in the same vein, I’ve made an attempt to be a little more specific and daring about what’s going to happen in the new year.
New hotels to open, existing ones to renovate
One of the first interviews I had was with RAR Hospitality CEO and PresidentBob Rauch. During the meeting, he made sure to tell me Phoenix is the largest growing city in the hospitality industry.
Rauch was right. Just within the past few months, new hotels have opened or announced they will open. Those properties include the Hilton Garden Inn Phoenix Downtown, the future Andaz Resort & Spa Scottsdale and the futureParadise Valley Ritz-Carlton, just to name a few.
At the same time, existing hotels such as the Hotel Valley Ho, the Four Points by Sheraton Phoenix North Hotel and the Radisson Phoenix North, among others, have undergone millions of dollars worth of major renovations. That doesn’t begin to include the impact of the major hotel merger between Starwood Hotelsand Marriott International.
With the influx of college bowl games and playoffs, the NCAA championship, and the golf and spa lifestyle that out-of-towners gab about, it is more likely hotels will continue to either improve or open throughout the Valley, namely in the West Valley, downtown Phoenix and Scottsdale.
The East Valley hasn’t seen as much action as the rest of Phoenix with hotels, but that could always change.