SDBJ: Local Hotel Industry Seems to Have Put Downturn Behind It
from San Diego Business Journal (July 11, 2014):
…The rise in room rates is a sign that San Diego has shaken off the last vestiges of the post-recession economy, along with last year’s political controversies that log-jammed local tourism promotion funding in the early months of 2013, hotel consultant Robert Rauch said.
“San Diego basically wasn’t doing any marketing a year ago,” said Rauch, president of San Diego-based R.A. Rauch & Associates, who also operates two Hilton-branded hotels in Carmel Valley.
Rauch said the San Diego’s hotel metrics have essentially returned to where they were before the national and local tourism economy cratered in 2009, when the full brunt of the Great Recession was first felt.
Poised for Continued Growth
With current momentum and barring an unforeseen national event that impacts personal spending, Rauch said San Diego is poised to see at least two more years of continued growth in the key metrics, with annual RevPar growth of 6 to 7 percent and room rate growth of 5 to 7 percent.
Rauch said it’s unlikely that a number of new local hotel projects, recently announced or now under construction, will do much to dampen current rate and revenue growth trends…
