PORTSMOUTH — Lodging Econometrics, a global authority for hotel real estate, announced in its 2008 Outlook for the Lodging Industry that at the end of the fourth quarter of 2007, 5,438 projects, representing 718,387 guest rooms, were in the construction pipeline. In the fourth quarter, the number of new projects announcements reached a cyclical high of 951 projects, or 116,590 rooms, a clear reflection of optimistic developers who anticipate the lending markets will have stabilized and approached normalcy when they are ready to seek financing. As late as the fourth quarter, developers hoped that the residential real estate mortgage and lending crisis would soon be resolved and not seriously interfere with lending for hotels going forward, nor slide over and affect the broader economy. While hotel developers might have successfully waited out a difficult, yet contained lending crisis, December and January statistics show that the crisis is no longer contained. Since the 2003 bottom, only 2004 and 2005 saw year-over-year demand grow in excess of 3 percent, while after the 1992 bottom, demand growth exceeded 3 percent in seven of the following eight years. read more

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