It goes without saying that the hotel industry has come a long way in the 150 years since Hotel Management began reaching hospitality professionals. From the age of grand hotels strictly for the wealthy in the late 1880s to J.W. Marriott turning his A&W Hot Shoppes into hotels and Kemmons Wilson strategically placing Holiday Inns along the U.S. highway system, the industry’s evolution continues today.
Within the last decade alone, the industry has undergone significant change—from major merger and acquisition activity to a worldwide pandemic—not to mention rapid technological advances and the inevitable ups and downs tied to economic cycles and other external events.
In fact, from 2010 through 2019 the industry enjoyed one of the longest periods of sustained growth ever, with increases in key metrics such as occupancy, average daily rate and revenue per available room. Growth only began to slow slightly in 2019 before a far more dramatic decline in 2020 when COVID-19 became widespread.
With the pandemic, the industry faced one of its greatest challenges as travel came to a virtual standstill. Occupancies plunged, hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost or furloughed and hotels experienced historic losses with many properties struggling to stay open.
Between March and May 2020 in the U.S., daily room occupancy dropped roughly 74 percent, average daily rate declined about 47 percent, and RevPAR fell approximately 86 percent, according to research from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Furthermore, 2020 was the worst year on record for occupancy, coming in at 43.9 percent, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association.
Many employees were dismissed, never to return to the industry. In the U.S., roughly 70 percent of hotel employees were laid off or furloughed early in the pandemic. Projected job loss in 2020 was nearly 630,000, according to UNLV research.
“COVID-19 created an epiphany,” said Greg Winey, founder and principal of NorthPointe Hospitality Management. “We got body-checked into a new lane and have been changed forever. The 10-year RevPAR party we’d been on since 2009 officially ended. You found out if your company’s creed, mission statement or value pledge was worth the paper it was written on during COVID. Crises are always defining, amplifying the very best in many and, unfortunately, the very worst in some.”
The American Hotel & Lodging Association, meanwhile, took an active role in advocating for the industry and helping many hotels survive. The association pushed Congress for relief packages specifically targeting hotels, including extensions of the Paycheck Protection Program and the creation of liquidity measures to help hoteliers meet their debt-service requirements.
Extended-Stay’s Growth
One of the things COVID did do was shine a light on the extended-stay sector, which significantly outperformed the industry during the pandemic and in the years that followed. With a low-cost, more efficient operating model, the segment has consistently provided robust returns on investment for owners.
According to The Highland Group, extended-stay RevPAR recovered to roughly 90 percent of 2019 levels within the early recovery period. Economy and mid-price extended-stay segments even exceeded 2019 RevPAR in some cases. Furthermore, the Highland Group noted that ADR for extended-stay in recent post-pandemic years settled in the $115 to $120 range, while occupancy remained higher than the total-industry average.
“In 2020, when the hotel industry came to a standstill due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the one segment that proved resilient was extended-stay hotels,” said Mark Williams, managing director of franchising development at Extended Stay America. “This served as a wake-up call for the industry, sparking tremendous interest from brands to provide their investors with a stronger, more reliable platform: the midscale extended-stay segment.”
“Since then, we have seen demand surge, and the segment shows no signs of slowing down in the foreseeable future,” Williams added.
As such, major brands continue to ramp up their extended-stay portfolios, with many recently creating more affordable options such as Marriott International’s StudioRes brand and Hilton’s LivSmart brand, both of which debuted their first properties in 2025.
Choice Hotels acquired the economy extended-stay WoodSpring Suites brand in 2018 and followed up by launching its mid-priced Everhome Suites brand in 2022, giving the company four brands in the segment. Wyndham launched its Echo Suites brand for the economy extended-stay market in 2022 and subsequently acquired the upscale WaterWalk brand in 2024, giving the company three extended-stay options, including its Hawthorn Suites flag. Other recent extended-stay additions include Best Western’s @Home midscale brand and Hyatt’s upper-midscale Hyatt Studios brand, launched in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
M&A Activity
Meanwhile, mergers and acquisitions continued to drive change across the industry throughout the past decade. This reached a new level in 2016 when Marriott International completed its unprecedented $13 billion acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, bringing some 30 brands into its portfolio. Initially threatened by antitrust issues globally, the deal was ultimately green-lighted by regulators in the U.S., China and the European Union. With the acquisition, Marriott added brands such as Westin, Element, Sheraton and W Hotels to its portfolio.
The integration of the two companies and their loyalty programs took the better part of two years to complete. The combined company has since rebranded its loyalty program as Marriott Bonvoy, which now has approximately 248 million members.
But there was also plenty of news around mergers that didn’t happen. Just last year, one of the biggest potential deals collapsed when Choice Hotels failed in its hostile takeover bid of Wyndham Hotels—a move that would have created the largest franchisor in the industry. After months of back and forth, the deal was ultimately rejected by Wyndham shareholders.
M&A activity also reshaped the third-party management sector when Aimbridge Hospitality merged with Interstate Hotels & Resorts in 2019, creating the industry’s largest management company with roughly 1,400 properties. Aimbridge has since acquired Prism Hotels (2021) and Terrapin Hospitality (2023), growing its global portfolio to more than 1,500 hotels.
The Rise of Sustainability and Technology
Another major development over the past decade has been the prioritization of sustainability by leading hotel companies, many of which have set portfolio-wide targets and introduced standardized methods and operational toolkits.
In 2021, Marriott International committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2050, along with a goal to reduce food waste by 50 percent. In 2024, Hilton accelerated its Travel with Purpose 2030 goals, including cutting carbon-emission intensity of managed hotels by 75 percent and franchised hotels by 56 percent, while reducing water use and waste generation by 50 percent compared to a 2008 baseline.
Of course, every industry has been transformed by rapid advances in technology, particularly artificial intelligence, and hospitality is no exception. Tech adoption has accelerated in the past decade, beginning with hotel apps enabling remote check-in and keyless entry. That movement went mainstream in 2015 and grew rapidly during COVID as the adoption of mobile keys surged, with guests seeking to avoid face-to-face interaction at the front desk.
Cloud-based property-management systems have also become the norm, replacing outdated legacy systems at the property level. AI, meanwhile, has moved from experimental to operational, with chatbots and virtual concierges becoming commonplace. Other advancements include AI-driven dynamic pricing through revenue-management systems and personalized guest experiences.
"The technology that actually makes a difference helps us do our jobs better and makes staying at our hotels better for guests,” said Kerry Ranson, president of operations and partner, Raines.
One thing is certain: it’s been a wild ride for the hotel industry in recent years, with change as the only constant. What lies ahead for the next 150 years is anyone’s guess.