Seventy-Five Years of U.S. Hotel Revenues, Expenses, and Profits

Abstract

The U.S. lodging industry has endured numerous-cycles over the past seventy-five years, beginning with the depths of depression in the 1930s. The industry saw a recovery in demand in the 1940s, particularly after the war years, but rising revenues were offset by postwar inflation. The 1950s saw a boom for the industry in terms of the number of rooms, especially those resulting from the construction of the interstate highway system. Chains began their substantial growth in the 1960s, which was another decade of relative prosperity and expansion for the lodging industry. With fuel shortages and inflation, the 1970s represented a time of rising costs and an effort to keep pace with rates. This culminated in the prosperous 1980s, but that decade was capped by a real estate bust. In the 1990s, the industry again prospered, in part because investors were initially reluctant to add to the supply. The first decade of the twenty-first century has essentially been a lost decade, in which the industry first experienced a steep drop in demand, followed by considerable growth, and then a stunning economic collapse.