Hotel and resort managers say requests for connecting rooms and suites have increased recently as multigenerational families and large groups of friends gather. Some hotels have reported a more than 20% increase in demand for these types of rooms.

San Francisco hotels are still struggling badly in both occupancy and room rates compared with before the pandemic. Revenue per available room was nearly 23% lower in April compared with the same month in 2019. The city’s lodging business has been squeezed by crime and other quality-of-life issues that have kept many convention bookers away. Tech companies’ embrace of remote work also undercuts business travel to the city and hotel activity.

Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust is selling the 1,000-room JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort and Spa for $800 million in a deal that is being called the second-biggest hotel transaction since the pandemic and a major bet on the convention and leisure industry. The hotel is being bought by Nashville, Tennessee-based Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc.

Extended stay hotels remain an enduring bright spot for a hospitality industry that was rocked by the pandemic. These properties had an occupancy rate of 74.7% last year, significantly higher than overall hotel occupancy in the U.S., which reached 62.6% in 2022.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics published the latest average hourly earnings of employees in the accommodation sector and the preliminary average March wage stood at $23.33, the highest amount on record. The change from a year ago was an increase of just over 6%.

Hotel asset managers surveyed with 64.6% of respondents ranking wage increases as one of the factors they are most concerned about, followed by 57.3% who are worried about labor availability and 52.4% concerned about demand.

After three consecutive month-over-month increases, the overall number of U.S. rooms in construction fell slightly in March. Among the chain scale segments, luxury shows the highest number of rooms as a percentage of existing supply at 5.2%.

Rockefeller Center is preparing to open its first hotel, the latest sign that Midtown Manhattan’s largest office landlords are leaning into hospitality and entertainment as remote work reduces demand for office space. Aspen Hospitality plans to convert 10 floors of vacant office space above the NBC “Today” show studios into a luxury hotel. Rockefeller Center was a natural choice for Aspen Hospitality, because its owner, the Chicago-based Crown family, co-owns the complex with New York-based real-estate developer Tishman Speyer.

U.S. hotel gross operating profit per available room exceeded the pre-pandemic comparable and was the highest since October, according to STR’s February 2023 profit and loss data release for February. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization was the only key bottom-line metric on a per-available-room basis to come in lower than February 2019.

The number of global travelers increased to nearly 7 billion in 2022, a 54% increase from the prior year. But 2022 figures came in about 26% less than 2019.