Dive Brief:

• The U.S. led the world in first quarter 2016 hotel construction and planning with 4,471 hotel projects, or 551,965 rooms, underway — representing 40% and 29% of the global total respectively, according to Lodging Econometrics.
• New York City had the most hotels under construction or planned of any metro in the world, with 187 projects totaling 32,136 rooms, Building Design + Construction reported.
• Upscale hotels had a 31% share of the U.S. construction market with 1,384 projects, and Marriott had a third of that through its Residence Inn (168 projects), Courtyard (140) and SpringHill Suites (124) brands.

Dive Insight

Lodging Econometrics reported that following New York City, the most active U.S. hotel markets were Houston (169 projects), Dallas (128), Los Angeles (94) and Nashville (89) and, in four of five of these markets, Marriott-branded hotels had the most projects underway.

Globally, but not including the U.S., China had the most hotel projects either under construction or in planning with 2,448 projects (549,333 rooms), followed by Brazil (407 projects; 70,833 rooms), Indonesia (398; 64,695) and India (314; 47,566). Of the world's largest cities, Jakarta was second to New York with 130 projects (22,851 rooms), followed by Seoul (128; 27,187), Shanghai (114; 24,285) and Dubai (104; 29,948).

To demonstrate the growth of hotel projects and planning in the U.S. since the beginning of the year, at the start of 2016, hotel research firm STR reported that there were 865 hotel projects, representing 103,230 rooms, under construction. Similar to the Lodging Econometrics report, STR also reported that New York had the most hotel construction activity.

In the Dodge 2016 Construction Outlook report late last year, Dodge Data & Analytics predicted a 4% rise in U.S. hotel construction starts this year, due largely to strong consumer spending and an improving economy.