Dive Brief:
- New York City and Phoenix are set to open the most U.S. hotel rooms in 2026, according to new pipeline data from CoStar.
- Of the top five markets by projected 2026 room openings, New York City is expected to have the most, at 4,852 rooms, with Phoenix following at 3,650 rooms, per the report. Dallas (3,558 rooms), Orlando (1,988 rooms) and Miami (1,954 rooms) round out the list.
- This year marks the second consecutive year New York City has led the country in expected new-build openings, which “shouldn’t be a surprise given that the market has also led the country in occupancy for the last three years,” Isaac Collazo, senior director of analytics at STR, said in a release. “That said, both room supply and room demand are still lower today than they were in 2019, showing there is still opportunity for further growth.”
Dive Insight:
In the first half of 2025, New York City’s Manhattan lodging market saw strong RevPAR results, according to data from PwC. Those figures were driven by ADR gains, with luxury hotels being the top performers, and PwC said the market had “shifted beyond post-pandemic stabilization and towards long-term growth.” This year’s openings numbers for New York are down slightly from 2025 projections, however.
In Phoenix, hotel industry growth has been buoyed by sports tourism and luxury vacationers, as well as relocating companies. Major infrastructure projects are also driving more people to the market. The region had the nation's largest number of hotel projects under construction in the third quarter of 2025, according to the U.S. Hotel Construction Pipeline Trend Report from Lodging Econometrics.
According to CoStar’s report, overall, there were 749 hotel openings, or 79,116 rooms, in the U.S in 2025. In 2026, the number of openings is expected to increase to 891 hotels, or 99,011 rooms, while 2027 is projected to see 1,688 hotel openings, or 191,926 rooms.
“While U.S. hotel development has been slow, there is still optimism around the industry based on the record number of projects in the pipeline,” Collazo said. “It’s not surprising that 2025 saw the largest number of new openings since 2021, and 2026 openings are expected to be back to the pre-pandemic level.”
