Demand is turning the corner

I am Stephanie Ricca with CoSTar News. As always. Here with STR's Isaac Calazzo and co-stars Jan Freytag. Hi guys. Hey, hey, sir. Hello in person. We are recording in person, dear listeners. That means that we are all sitting here around a table face to face, making eye contact, not knowing where it will lead. I can't promise anything. Yeah, this is very different. Normally we just hear each other and now wow, here we are. But hey. You're not a hologram.

Your hologram. Authentic in-person experiences are the name of the hospitality game, right? And we're providing it to our listeners. Yes. So so much has happened since the last time we talked. for this podcast, which feels like forever ago, right? You know, we had the Winter Olympics, which why I know are very popular um among me and my team. I don't know, you guys Olympics fans? Which sport? Well, we watch curling. I watch figure skating, hockey. Uh how about the four man bobsled team?

Well killed it. We have twelve people who are really good at it. And if you do the math, that means the top three bobsleds were all German. How crazy is that? Gold, silver, bronze in the four man bobsled team. That's really cool. And no, we're not gonna buy the jersey as you do for the winning team because it turns out those are uh Suit. Bye now. Necessarily be something you want to run around.

Grocery store. But anyway, so we will put them aside for four years and then we'll cheer again. So we can't follow like a national bobsled international bobsled circuit? Maybe. Like we just pay attention during the Olympics. You know, there's a lot of good data around sporting events, as you both know. So if you're ever finding yourself, you know, wanting to dig into something new, look for the International Bobsled Circuit. And listeners, if any of you know if this exists.

Please do let us know. I'm sure it exists. I'm sure it must. Now we'll know. If somebody calls us or drops us a LinkedIn message, then hey, we'll invite you to be a guest on the podcast. Now, closer to the industry, I'd say the headline of the past month has been hello luxury hotel sales, right? Finally. So host sold to Four Seasons Resort. One in Orlando, one in Jackson Hole, combined one billion. Gencom picked up the Ritz Karl to New York.

And then of course in the most yes, we knew this was going to happen, uh, news, the Waldorf Astoria in New York is officially, unofficially. Officially and officially for sale. It's for sale. It's for sale. Right. So Craig Carmen from the journal broke the story. And though the big question is who is willing to spend all this money on the iconic address, you know, of on Park Avenue. And the question is, will the Chinese uh investor, which is you know, now mostly government owned

ever make any return on their investment? The answer is likely no. The part of the problem is they don't know how the math works because we don't know how much money they spent on it. Was it four billion? Was it five billion? Was it six billion? That makes it hard on the exit, right? Exactly. And so much changed with that hotel too, right? Room count went way down. Way down. So price per room, whatever it was then, is going to look different.

It is beautiful though. I mean they did um renovation I had a chance to to walk through it and um what was just spectacularly to s spectacularly to see was that we all remember the old NYU investment conference used to be there and it all seemed a little bit dark. And so when we got the tour, they said, Yeah, well there's like a hundred years of

cigarette smoke on the ceiling and we're finally liberated that away and it it just looks stunning, sparkling. So if you have a chance, dear listener, just to walk through the lobby, it it is it is truly spectacular. And yes, I think it will definitely sell. I don't think it's a question of

If it's just a when and who it just depends. I mean you gotta think uh and people buy crazy things all the time. Like, you know, someone did buy Sears and Kmart and guess what? That wasn't a great buy. So someone will buy something that we'll continue to have. Some historical significance and will continue to turn some cash, I'm sure, because of the residences and the hotel itself. Sure. I wanna know if the bar still has the the uh logo wine glasses.

You know they flip the peacock alley around like it's on the It's in a different spot, right? But you didn't check out the barware? The bull and the b bear is that the bull and the bear. That's right. I ever No, you only heard of it. It did not go home with me in my purse, but it had a beautiful logo on it, which her name is Stephanie Ricca. She didn't.

If I'll be invited, maybe that's why I wasn't invited to the opening. But a lot to keep an eye on in the coming months. And of course, you know, this is the time when we're all talking about what will this mean for triggering, precipitating additional hotel transactions down the line, which the industry has been waiting to see. So that's the future. But first, as usual, we are going to take a wee look back at the month in review. Isaac

I'm gonna turn it to you to briefly recap January for us. New year, new start. Any new performance trends? Yes, and I think we have a headline. January is the headline. It's gonna continue into February. So not only are sales the headline. But I think performance is beginning to become a headline as well on the positive side, not the negative side.

So let's recap about January. Remember, we started very strong with the New Year's Eve week or the holiday week. It was super strong, stronger than we expected. We thought it'd be strong, but it was still even stronger than we expected. Then of course it weakened than we expected. Then it started surging back.

And just when we thought, God, January's gonna be really, really strong, winter storm storm fern came about and wrecked everything. You remember that? So we had that negative week and then it all returned. But what's surprising about even with the storm is that room demand grew. Room demand in January grew 0.5%. It would have been much stronger had FERN not occurred. So just keep that in mind. In fact, it was the first monthly increase in demand since March 2025.

Wow. January now is the second highest January ever behind January twenty twenty. So again, talking about it's really it's it was a very strong January. In terms of demand, right. We're not talking ref par yet. We're just talking about demand. Right. And so I think it's just it's growth upon growth in terms of demand. And that's something we hadn't seen in a very long time. And with that came the first RevPAR growth, 0.4%, also since March of last year.

And then we saw the only thing I think is negative in January is still ADR. ADR grew about 0.6. It's negative in my view because it's below the rate of inflation. In fact, ADR has been below 1% for the last three months. And I think that's still something that we gotta consider and keep talking about because that means essentially that I we would think that Gopar is declining because revenues are not increasing as fast as expenses.

if you assume expenses are increasing at the rate of inflation, which I think is a pretty good assumption. In terms of the top twenty five Uh you saw Ref Par there grow zero point one percent. That doesn't sound great. Again, there are some forces that are holding it back, including uh Tampa Bay, some other markets that had very s Washington DC that had very strong

Ref power growth a year ago, Washington becoming because of the inauguration, Tampa Bay because of the hurricane uh markets. It's part of the hurricane market, so it's kind of reversing out. What was really interesting in the top 25 is the number one market was Minneapolis. RefPAR there was up 25%. Another top market was Miami at sixteen percent. Pretty easy for Miami to understand that. It's in season, but they also had the college.

uh championship this year was in Atlanta the year prior. But there were up 14 other markets in the top 25 that grew RevP. So again, very strong. That is strong because typically it was only Right. So again we do see change in the year. And on the flip side on the top twenty five, the losers, the big losers at this point in terms of RevPAR, again, Washington, DC, nothing to do with anything on policy. This has to do with inauguration, all ADR driven.

RefPAR there this month was down or in January down thirty one point three percent. Tampa was down nineteen percent. Again, that's a hurricane market, and then there were seven others that were down. In terms of the remaining markets throughout the uh US, they were up zero point nine percent. And so that's actually pretty solid again. You gotta remember it would have been much higher had Fern not occurred. Because Fern really took out essentially half the country.

from traveling for a good four or five days. Including many of us. Including you, Jan, who didn't join me at Alice because you couldn't get there because we were iced in here in uh Nashville. Top markets outside of the top twenty-five include Texas North up fifty-five percent, Louisiana North up forty-one point six percent. Hey Jan, what do you think these two markets have in common? Is it possible? Has it does it have to do with energy? Does it have to do And AI? It could.

Sure, yeah. So those markets Louisiana North particularly in Texas, I think they've both been seeing very strong growth. Um, and then the large Rift Par decliners outside of top 25 were essentially the 2024 hurricane markets. Again, that will continue to be the case. Up until around March and then that's gonna go completely away. Now chain uh bifurcation is still a thing, but the way I like to say because we're in January, it's thawing a bit.

So luxury ref par was up one point nine percent. Independence were up one point two. But the one that caught my eye, up uh upper mid scale, up zero point eight percent. Why is that important? It's the largest branded scale. And so that's really important. Come back a little bit. and nearly every chain scale saw demand grow in January, except economy, but it was only down zero point three percent.

So that's not it's a d it's a negative, but it's not a huge negative. And independence were down one point one. So the question I posed to myself and Jan when he was my neighbor, Jan moved away from me. Dear listeners, and I'm having a very hard time. I moved uh forty-three yards away. It is it is horrible.

Because I cannot go into his office and say, Hey, look what I just found. Now I have to actually pack a lunch, get some water, walk across the building and go see Jan. But I think we are we we may be turning the corner. And I think it's a room demand thing that we've gotta start paying attention to. So as I was preparing slides for January

I noticed something that I hadn't noticed. When you look at the December decrease in demand, it was only zero point five percent, I remember correctly. And it's the smallest decrease since the very like middle of the year, beginning of last year. And then you add January and what you start seeing and you add February month to date, you start seeing an upward trend.

And so when I started thinking about so December's decrease was the smallest since May. January's rise was the first, as I said, since March, but it was growth on growth. February is on track to increase by more than two percent. And that to me starts to telling me there's a trend. I have a lot more facts about that.

If you exclude the thirteen hurricane markets, you also exclude Los Angeles from the numbers. Los Angeles last year benefited from from the wildfires, which is a bad way of saying it, but they had displacement. Yeah, impacted. Houston had was a was a big drag on the US because they had also weather related uh issues from the middle of twenty twenty four, then Las Vegas because of all the changes in Las Vegas and DC.

So if you look at 154 of the 172 markets, so 89% of all markets, and we're not just cherry picking, want to make that clear. January room demand was up 2.2%. It is the largest gain among those hundred and fifty four markets since February of twenty twenty three. So demand is turning the corner. Right. Demand and that's the most important thing. You can't get pricing without demand. Right. You've got to have heads and beds.

Should we make t-shirts that say you can't get pricing without demand? Maybe. We should. December demand in that same light, those hundred and fifty-four markets, was up a hundred excuse me, one point seven percent. So again, now I'm really seeing something that's real. And then I started going through all the chain scales except independence, they were all up, ranging from eight point nine percent in luxury to five point two percent in mid scale.

Others were between two point three economy and three point two upper mid scale. So I mean there's something here. And again, it's hard to say two, two and a half months is a trend, but it's something worth watching very carefully. And we're going to continue just kind of isolating, again, not cherry-picking, not looking at only the best markets.

We really took out the ones that were real outliers, the ones I mentioned before, the hurricane markets, et cetera. But there's something really, really strong here. And then a couple other tidbits before we move on. This month in February. No, we're talking January, but it's very important to get this out already. In the first twenty-one days of February, because we're reporting one days of uh of performance. Twenty of those days have seen growth in demand.

That is the most we've seen a twenty conse twenty out of twenty-one since January of twenty twenty three. Right. And in the in January of this year, we also saw fifteen days of demand growth out of the thirty one days. And again, that was impacted a good bit with a

So uh there is something that I'm gonna keep uh, you know, looking at, but we there is something very different happening. And the reason I say that, because on average in twenty twenty five Each month only had seven days of demand growth. Wow. So yeah. So now you start to say, hey, this is really interesting. And when I talk about the twenty days of demand growth, that's not

That's the whole US. That's not the hundred and fifty four. This is really just the whole US looking at it and saying, what is you know, something's up here? So I think I'm really turning optimistic because we didn't expect this and I you know, we thought December was an anomaly.

I now January we can't say well January's an anomaly too because it actually got impacted by something that was very impactful. And now February is just seems to be really booming. What do you call before a trend? A micro trend? A pre trend? Yeah, I mean the tea leaves are pointing in the Ladies and gentlemen, Yanfraytek reads the tea leaves.

I read data. That's what you got. Well, y so good. I I I love your optimism. I love the way you're looking at this. I love the way that you're extracting the outliers and saying, Okay, what's at the core? Right. And that's the the hundred and fifty plus market. We always of course have the bumper sticker on our cars. One month does not a trend make your two months. Three months. Right. So

Are we are we there yet? Um let's give it all the way through February. Now you're right. The first three weeks are very, very encouraging. Um I we you and I have talked about this being slow and very slow growth or slight deceleration now for so long. It's gonna take me a minute to retrain that muscle of being so optimistic. So I want you to be right. I'm just gonna sit over here. And not say anything. I'm just gonna wait for a little bit and let the data play out. Yeah, I mean again it is

It is it it was striking when we're just creating the graphs. Again, a lot of this as we're starting to analyze January, because we do a lot of internal meetings as you know, Stephanie, and we were actually preparing for an internal meeting when I just, wait a minute, what is this? This is different. I didn't expect this. And then February I thought, Oh, something's wrong.

And again, being a data guy, the first thing you always think about is, Oh my God, there's something wrong with the data. And so and then you start digging and that's the first thing we do is okay, let's go make sure the data's right. Eliminate the user error. Right. Make sure that you I didn't filter like

like for something odd. And so'cause again, many times working with all these big data sets, you can push a filter. So we've been working on this for the last several days and everything still points to a very Strong February. And um just to give you just to remind you, February year grow.

a year ago had uh one percent demand growth and we're looking at two point three so it's growth on growth. So it could become the best February ever in S T R history. And you know two point three percent is In the way I came up with two point three,'cause it's actually up three point I saw today at three something. It's uh as of the twenty first is up three percent uh month to date. But I expect the week to be to decline.

So just to be really conservative, I have the remaining seven days declining and it still shows a two point three percent. gain in demand. So that's a conservative, it could be much, much better. So they drink the tea, they read the leaves, and then they actually then we drink the tequila. So then they finish the tea With a mixer of their choice. Yes. Uh just to finish out the the performance side for January, globally it's still doing really well.

Ref power is up two point eight percent on occupancy of two point ADR did slow about it s fell actually to zero point eight percent. It was really because of China and Mexico ADR, some uh uh China part had to do with the movement of the lunar um New Year. So and then Mexico we're watching carefully because a lot it seems to be a correction and it's hard to explain this. We've been looking at this over this fast week.

where you see ADR really growing very, very strong last year, beginning end of 2024, into 2025, and now going back down. Seems to be all in the luxury properties. Uh but when you look at the absolute ADR, it does seem like it's going back to where it was prior. So Uh and if you take those two countries out, then global ref power was actually up four point two percent on a three point three percent ADR increase. So again, it's really two countries that kind of uh

kind of brought down the global number. And then since we were talking the Winter Olympics, obviously one of the highest performing even though it was January, one of the highest performing countries, was Italy, Ref Par was up thirteen percent. Milan was up thirty percent. And this is January, not even the February when the actual event took place. And then of course your favorite fan, Canada still up seven point nine percent. ADR at four point seven percent. So uh really I think

Uh one last thought, you know, global demand has been trending up for a while. It's been the US that's been trending down. And so it was up again at three point three percent uh this this month and that was the largest since November of twenty twenty four. So again, we're watching demand not only in the US but globally in mo many countries. So This could be much better than we thought.

So Yeah, unfortunately Mexico is in the news, you know, all of last week's and some uh people got stuck uh in uh in in some markets. So it's gonna be interesting to see what the knock on effect is. Are people gonna say suddenly, Oh, all of Mexico isn't safe? Will that impact how, for example, the Canadians that just traveled to Mexico are they all coming to the Caribbean now. So I think that's definitely something to watch.

Yeah, and we'll continue watching that again. This was January this before all that this again it's very s it's very local uh it's lo localized into the uh resort areas of Mexico again among luxury properties. So that's what we've been watching. And I know we'll keep an eye specifically on Mexico and Canada as we move into World Cup season. Right. As well. Which we'll talk about later.

All right, Jan. It is time for your topic of the month, which is one that, you know, is a headline right now for everyone involved in commercial real estate, and that's data center development, right? We all see these giant data centers popping up. Or proposed for regions around the US that have a lot of land, access to energy and water to accommodate this kind of development, which is really for artificial intelligence infrastructure, right? Mega computing centers that power.

All of the times that Jan asks Copilot to write poems about RevPar, that power has to come from somewhere and it's a data center. Jan, you've done some research looking at hotel development around these sites. Tell us what we need to know. Yeah, I had co pilot rider haiku, which I'm not gonna share with you because it was actually not that great. About the three of us and Rath Park. But it had no problem doing it. You know, it took point five eight seconds and

Kill the tree, I guess. Well, it was powered by a data center. Yes, exactly. Somewhere on in the Great Plains. So part of why uh I love this job and part of uh you know it's f so fun to be having access to the STR data and the co star. data is to be able to look at other commercial real estate plays and sort of connect it to the hospitality industry.

So there was a reporter over at Coastar News wrote an article it was called The Nation's Biggest AI data centers are taking root in some unexpected places. Which, you know, of course made me perk up and say, Oh, okay, well, which places? And So they are really literally in the middle of nowhere. Um, 15 of them are under construction right now. These are either data centers or large power generation plants, millions and millions of square feet, billions and billions.

Of development dollars put into the Great Plains in the middle of nowhere, literally. And so I was like, okay, so who's building these? Clearly, the people who are constructing them are not living there. So ta-da, they must be using hotel room nights. So I asked for the list of those 15 very, very large-scale developments.

and um just went into our product and did a radial search, five miles, ten miles, fifteen miles around those data centers and said, hey, what's the hotel performance of those properties? And I came up with uh with an article that that ran on on Coastal News. Construction of AI for infrastructure proves a boon for hotels of remote areas. We will link this article in the show notes.

And not a big surprise, right, that on an annualized basis, 12 months ending late last year, occupancies are increasing, you know, 10% or so for uh around uh hotels, around those data centers. But the individual occupancy varies widely, right? So in some markets occupancies are up ten, twenty percent or so in a in a radius around the property. And I just thought I'd pick one uh one specific um project. This is the meta Hyperion Campus. in Holly Ridge, Richland Parish,

Louisiana. Louisiana North. Isaac said it earlier, right? Exactly. That connects back to Isaac's point about Louisiana North and about Texas South being absolutely the hotbeds of this development. So the$10 billion Hyperion is an AI supercluster slaved to be Meta's largest ever data center, over 4 million square feet.

So that is a lot of development. And then of course I went to Wikipedia and asked, so tell me about Holly Ridge, Louisiana. And they said it has a population of less than 2,000. So clearly. And not a lot of people live there and the the people who are in in the trades probably all work at that place. But clearly you had to get a lot of people shipped in and they need um h hotels to stay with them. So I did a radial study five miles around um this m meta uh construction.

And there are no hotels. So then I did ten mile race and there are Four hotels with one holding express in construction. So I said, okay, that doesn't work either. And so I did a 20-mile radius, and then you get to some data. And it's just really interesting to look at the occupancy annualized as up. almost twelve percent. The room rate annualized is up almost nine percent. The other just I have to bring in this side note because this was on Wikipedia, so it must be true. Quote.

Vehicle crashes on roads near the Hyperion construction site increased by more than six hundred percent in twenty twenty five. Compared to 2024. So clearly with a lot more people come a lot more problems and also a lot more car crashes. So we link to this article in the show notes, but I just think it's a super interesting way of how when we talk about AI and construction, how this always links back to our industry. So for those of you that want to visit where the site is going.

It's between Monroe and Shreveport. on I-20. That's why there's so many accidents because there are just there's one road and the major hotel markets is either Monroe or Shreveport. Or Shreveport. There is nothing else really in between there. So the exact address is actually Burn Road. Burrow in Holly Ridge, Louisiana. But the question and two points here. So number one, you can see and I don't know if you you said you looked at the hotels there.

So I listened in on Windham's uh fourth quarter full year earnings call and they mentioned specifically this type of project for hotel signings and and conversions that they had in the works. Um Last quarter and last year. I believe it was brought up on Choices Call as well. I would imagine IHG, you mentioned um Holiday and Express. you know, maybe economy um to mid scale. Extended stay. Extended stay as well, especially those economy extended stay.

And you know, a little bit above that we've seen um so popular. But the real question is We've heard that these data centers, of course, to build something that big you need a le a lot of people to build it. But then you don't need a lot of people to run it. So does our Louisiana market need to say, hey, we've got a data center and now we've got hotels. We better get some other business.

I totally agree with you, Steph. That is the hundred billion dollar question. And I'm super worried that once this data center is built, it's gonna be run by twelve people. Ten of them sit in Seattle. Right. And the other two live in their house. somewhere in there will always be uh technicians going there. So there'll be some of the hotels will be fine. Right. Because again, having only visited one data center in my life

It would there were more people than you thought. There's not many people that are like operate that are there twenty four seven, right? That that's their office. But there are a lot of people in there, technicians, servicing Updating, whatever you want to call it. So that kind of work will continue regardless.

Mm-hmm. That's good to keep in mind. But it's not like an office that just gonna have a population with a thousand. No. It it may have a population transient of five hundred people here, one you know. Right. But not renewing leases and different office blocks. Okay. So it's very different. That's very as I said, it is the headline in all commercial real estate. Um so to look at that hotel link. And I'd just love that we can connect that those data sets, you know, g through the coastal.

All right, Isaac, it is time for your topic of the month. We alluded to it a little bit earlier, and I will say that today as we record, it is just over 100 days. Till the ball drops. on FIFA World Cup twenty twenty six. Is that how I say it? For football, the ball drops. From football, soccer. It's called kickoff, but okay. Kickoff Yeah, that was why I'm not the sports reporter for Coastar News Hotels. That's Trevor Simpson's job. But ball drops

What a a whistle? I'm sure there's a whistle. A ho an air horn of Vubuzella. Oh remember the Vubuzella. Until it starts, right? Sixteen cities in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Everyone is wondering. what the international inbound demand will look like. Isaac, STR's done a World Cup forecast. We have. Give us some color commentary. I was gonna say we're wondering too. So as your uh dear listener, as your lead forecaster, based on what I said earlier in this podcast, we may have to rethink this.

But let me tell you what we were thinking when we put together the forecast, which we only did three weeks ago and we presented it at Alice. So uh for those of you at Alice is a big hotel conference in LA, for most many of you know that. And so at Alice I talked about How important this the World Cup was to our forecast. So if you just remove the 11 US markets.

out of the US, like just remove them. Well, maybe go backwards. We're we predicted that Rev par this year would rise by zero point six percent. So if we remove those eleven markets, That would mean that the rest of the US would be down 0.3%. Wow. Meaning that the eleven markets are adding zero point nine percent to that number. But that's for the year. For the year, right. So But you can't really exclude those eleven markets. So you have you know

Many of them are in the top 25. They're really big markets, LA, obviously Dallas, Atlanta, New York. So you can't remove them. So what we did is we went back into the forecast and said, hey, what if we did the forecast without the World Cup? What do we think these markets would do okay without the World Cup and Man.

say how would the U.S. fare. So if you we did that, I can I can go through the methodology for those of you like, call me, I'll tell you how we did it. But then there were tea leaves. There was tea leaves Oh we had the dim A little bit. Crystals involved. But what we found is instead of rising by zero point six percent, US ref power would have only risen by zero point two percent.

So we believe that the World Cup is a um forty basis is it yeah, no forty basis point g a gain this year. For the year. For the year. In One month of play, but months of shoulder. Yeah. But yeah, one about the play, two months is the way we looked at it. Okay. What's interesting again, based on what we're seeing now in January and February and a little bit de December, we may have to really rethink the demand side'cause there may be a bigger demand play than we thought.

The ADR side, I think we've narrow we've really uh I think we have it right. But again, we'll look at that as well. But just to give you some more numbers on it. The collect collectively, those 11 markets in June and July will rise about 12.7% in RevPOR. So we're you know, we're not talking we're we we're being conservative overall. I think those markets are actually

pretty well forecasted where we may be conservatives the rest of the US given what we're seeing, right? So that maybe we will see a better Rev par, but not necessarily just from those eleven markets. So we're gonna stick with that 12.7% for those markets. To give you some idea, just give you some comparisons, back um In June and July of nineteen ninety-four, when we last hosted the World Cup, the markets that hosted the World Cup saw RevPAR increase by six point nine percent.

Wow. So this is much stronger. So yeah, so on a five percent ADR increase. So yeah, this is I think it it it makes sense, right? How different is the host? city lineup the stuff. Some of them were they were the same. The New York was also a player then. I don't know. Dallas was too, but I don't remember. I have to look at it. But yeah, it's a we we you know, I think we've got Again, the host city piece, right? If we have to revisit anything, it's gonna be the rest of the US.

And then the one pay and then ADR is still a wild card. Again, we were we looked at it, we try to look at, you know, number of luxury properties, all that, assuming that's gonna still be bifurcation, that that's where it's gonna be. But again, we'll continue watching it very carefully. But it is still significant, even though the numbers are low in terms of total US refa number, it's still gonna be a significant uh event. And we should link the press release as well.

Released uh on the nineteenth.

So what do you see so far right now in terms of forward looking data? It's mixed. That was what it's funny. Some markets were up, there's no doubt you can see dri because I actually looked at by the the play dates and things, but other markets were flat. So it's just very mixed and and it could be just way too soon. Right,'cause there's still a lot that we don't know yet. So again, I think again, we are gonna again we were just talking about that with the team uh

yesterday. We are monitoring that we're gonna look at a weekly and start really watching it as soon, especially as we get into the end of March, really March and April, we'll really have a much better handle of what that pickup looks like. But yeah, some markets were doing fine. I mean, New York is one of those markets that's gonna be great.

It's we're looking, you know, how's Kansas City gonna do? How's Atlanta gonna do? How you know, there's so many markets that we just don't really know. I think LA actually might do a w okay. So spe we hear a lot about Vancouver. Um Mexico City. Mexico City as the Mexico uh Mexico markets go. And you know, you talk about uh combining data sets or overlaying juxtaposing them.

It would be interesting to see what airlines are saying about their forward booking and and pricing data where some of that demand is coming from. Because that international Still the question. Right. That is the big wild card. And international was down in December and it was down in January, if I remember correctly. I think uh the numbers are out. So international, even though we're maybe seeing a a difference in demand for

The the hotel industry international is still down. It's not and then outbound was still increasing as well in January. Yeah, a couple of comments. So I think number one, exactly right, international inbound is the wildcard is really the question will people be able to get visas? even though you get this, you know, sort of golden visa if you get a ticket, what does that look like?

Um so all of those questions are still to be answered. I think there's another round of uh ticket allocations. So maybe after that happens there will be um more demand increases, more occupancies on the book. I think we're very lucky that we have access to the forward star data through STR. Uh I also would think that that's m better ninety days out than where we are today. So give us a c neck next week. Whistle blow. The World Cup.

that on purpose. That's so I I think the the next couple of uh tell me more is we're gonna have a lit a lot better insights. Um our friend Jamie Lane um from Air DNA built a really cool uh um dashboard that looks at short term rental occupancies on the books. I think that's worth checking out just to see how how that uh overlays with what what we're talking about. Um I am Djust a little worried. We are um the most conservative.

in our forecast, when you there are other uh f forecasters out there who are saying, no, no, no, guys, you have it all wrong. This is like forty-eight Super Bowls. And I think that's a little too optimistic. So we will we will see about that. The other piece, and that's where Isaac comes in, where we may be too conservative, is that we may have underestimated the impact of the base camp.

This idea of you know Japan being in Nashville. I talked to the GM yesterday who I can't mention because he's so much a secrecy. The Japanese team is staying with them and and he's like, Yep, this is an actually and for for So you're hosting the Japanese team? There is a hotel in Nashville. Yeah, yeah, me cooking. Um but so that's that's gonna be interesting for all those

uh World Cup teams that are coming in, right? There are forty eight of them. Sure, where are they going to stay? And that's going to could lift some secondary or tertiary markets and some like Team Japan will have a large press presence and you know, teams that are expected to that that have a good num good amount of money behind them to support. that type of uh extra with certainty about the forecast is that Germany is gonna be in the final four.

Just gonna talk seriously here, but I um I do think you're right on some of these base camp and I think like Nashville's gonna actually do very well. One of the things again as we look out, you know, January and February tend to be very quiet months here in Nashville, and they haven't been.

And so I think then on top of that, I think that momentum that we're seeing that's beginning, Nashville's having a very strong convention cent uh season already and leisure's coming really it came back faster than it normally does. Normally it's not till the springtime. So then you add upon that the space camp idea. Yeah, I think you might see some markets, including like Nashville, just really pop.

More so than they're what they're doing now. Well, and that kind of business this early in the year. will make up for the fact that, you know, we hear that World Cup matches in some of the host city, you know, means that uh some conventions and and events are saying, well, okay, let's go somewhere else so that we are not

in Houston at the same time as this. Right. So if you're laying in that group base. Yeah, I think it's gonna be very interesting. And again, I think we'll be talking about this in the next podcast. Several podcasts. All right, I promise I will never say when the puck drops again. But as I But again, I think I'd rather be conservative right now. Let's see get more data behind us and let's see what really happens on that forward booking piece and the international inbound.

Then we'll revise and you know, if we're wrong and it's much higher, that is great. That is the best position to be in.

All right, listeners, thank you for sticking with us for another episode. We are at the close of our February episode, and you know how we always close it. We give the metaphor. These two guys just spend their entire month. thinking about a clever way to describe the hotel industry we do as they see it in this point in time. So I'm in the room with you now. Who wants to go first? I think I'm gonna go first because this is a Nashville story. We're gonna so

Dear listeners, if you're ever in Nashville, you might be lucky enough to see us out and about live and in person. So Yan and I, so not only are we good data. collaborators. I think we're actually pretty good friends. That's why it hurt so much that you left. I'm still hurting here. Forty three yards. Forty three yards. But so we were out in January. We went out Jan called and said, Do you want to go see Cheryl Crow?

And I said, Yeah, that'd be great. So we went to the Woodlawn Theater. No, Woodworth Theater. And so it was never call me. I'm just a hours quite away. It well you should have come. It was a great great show. But in that show, as we're thinking, you know, data's never far from our minds. So we're watching the show and saying, she's really good.

And she decides to do a cover. And that cover is the perfect metaphor for what we saw this month and what we're seeing in February. It's by the Beatles. It was on the Abbey Road album. Here comes the Sun. Neither of us wants to actually sing it. So we just left that pause so that you all could sing it to yourselves. And you heard the mic drop. Didn't you hear that? There was a mic drop. Boy, this is fun live. I gotta come down here every month to do this.

Here comes the sun. Here comes the sun. And I will stick with that. And that was before we'd actually seen The sun. Right. Uh yeah. Uh that's her s her song. This is the song. But she sang truly. She actually did a cover of this and it was great. It was like really, really good. It was very fun. Amazing. Yan, how about you? So, well, I I think we're just gonna stick with soccer. You know, to quote the great Gary Lineker. Soccer is When two teams play for ninety minutes

And then the Germans win. Oh that is literally his quote. Is that your metaphor? No. The industry wins? I like that. That works. Well unfortunately, I'm gonna go back to how soccer Is just a lot of effort, 90 minutes, both team giving it their all. And at the very end, you end up with a zero, zero. And So I think the hotel industry is gonna have just A really, really hard time do

out even the smallest victory here. I think we're gonna run for three hundred and sixty five days really, really hard and then The performance is just gonna be flat with last year. So let me get this straight. We've gotten our positions back to normal. The l the stars of line. You're the pessimist and I'm the optimist. Everything's back to normal. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. You know, I think that's I really like that.

comparison. I always say I'm a basketball fan because I need Scoring fast. You know, I need to see high numbers up on those boards. I don't like the Well, I mean one of my favorite lines from Ted Lasso is when he's like, win or lose, this and this, and or and then the reporter yells at him, or draw. And he's like

Oh right, you do this over here. And that is sort of it's gonna be a draw. It's gonna be, you know, zero zero, one, one, like not a lot of action. You heard it here first. We're gonna have to watch this very carefully.

I have a feeling I know what the next six months of this podcast are gonna look like. Hey, hope you all have a great month. Thank you for listening. Find us wherever you like to listen, including now on YouTube. Find all the news about the global hotel industry. at co star.com slash hotel news. Thanks guys. I'm Terence Baker, News Editor Europe, Middle East and Africa, and I'm the host of The Upgrade, a Coast Star News Hotels podcast for the Emir region. In it, I discuss with special guests.

The pressures, challenges, joys, and acceleration that comes with managing, owning, and developing hotels in our glorious multifaceted industry. discovering the Emir region from the scenic northern shores of Norway to a height to Table Mountain in South Africa, and most likely some chat about birdwatching, distance running and the English Premiership. Join us wherever you find your podcasts on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify and on other platforms.

This episode of Tell Me More A Hospitality Data Podcast was recorded on february twenty five, twenty twenty six. The episode was edited by Sean McCracken. Find all hotel industry news at coastar dot com slash hotel news. Thanks for listening.