Market Trends

This article was written by Hospitality Daily Podcast. Click here to read the original article Josiah: Today in this special bonus episode, I’m excited to share with you a recording…

This article was written by Lodging Magazine. Click here to read the original article U.S. hoteliers are struggling to increase revenues in 2025, as rooms revenue (the largest source of…

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The San Francisco lodging market has been experiencing a major rebound in performance, with RevPAR up 8.9% as of year-to-date August. This improvement has been driven by a strong convention calendar, major employers implementing return-to-office mandates, and modest growth in tourism levels. San Francisco Travel Association anticipates Moscone Center will generate over 650,000 room nights in 2025, which equates to roughly 106.0% of 2023 levels but only 68.0% of peak 2019 performance. Salesforce, the city’s largest private employer, implemented a full return-to-office policy in January 2025. Gap, Inc. has been phasing in a return to office, increasing from two days a week in January to five days a week by the end of September 2025. The City of San Francisco has also implemented a four-day in-person mandate beginning August 2025.

The U.S. hotel industry reported mixed year-over-year comparisons, according to CoStar’s latest data through 1 November. CoStar is a global leading provider of online real estate marketplaces, information and analytics in the property markets.

U.S. hoteliers are struggling to increase revenues in 2025, as rooms revenue (the largest source of revenue for hotels) increased by just 0.8% during the first half of the year, according to CBRE’s August 2025 edition of Hotel Horizons®. Given the expected slowdown in U.S. lodging performance during the second half of 2025, CBRE’s forecast for the annual growth in RevPAR is just 0.1%.

Questions are commonplace in any hotel business. Who hasn’t been in a budget meeting or financial review when someone has asked if the food and beverage margins are competitive, or if the spa department should be generating more revenue, or how labor efficiencies compare to other properties of the same size? Transforming these questions into actionable insights is what hotel benchmarking can do—creating concrete, data-backed comparisons.

Europeans continue to prioritise travel, showing steady enthusiasm for exploring the continent even as the seasons turn cooler. According to the latest “Monitoring Sentiment for Intra-European Travel” report (Wave 23) by the European Travel Commission (ETC), 73% of Europeans intend to travel between October 2025 and March 2026, a figure that remains unchanged from last year.

A major decision for any hotel owner or investor is whether to affiliate their property with a brand. As ever so often, the trade-offs are as comprehensive as they are complex. We do note that the comparison is between the general independent vs branded hotel. There certainly are independent properties who do very well, yet those remain few and far. We shed light on the key considerations.