Hotels Making a Strong Recovery

In the world of travel and leisure, “merger mania” has been heating up lately. Forecasts for 2007 look to be in line with the past year’s activity thus far. As I told Travel Distribution Report recently, “Last year was a record year for hotel transaction activity. And now there are rumors about InterContinental Hotels (IHG - Snapshot Report) being potentially acquired by a private equity owner, which is driving up that stock price. “Today, you’re seeing owners pushing [their] room rate higher without sacrificing occupancy, and the market is handling well the lack of new supply…RevPAR was up about 8 percent in 2006 for U.S. hotels.”