The upper-midscale category has 2,067 projects with 205,662 rooms and the largest project count of any chain scale in the total pipeline, according to analysts at Lodging Econometrics. The second-largest category is upscale, which has 1,246 projects and 161,229 rooms. Together, the upper-midscale and upscale pipelines comprise 66 percent of all projects in the total pipeline.
The brands with the largest number of projects in the upper-midscale pipeline are:
- IHG’s Holiday Inn Express with 412 projects and 38,160 rooms;
- Hilton’s Home2Suites with 344 projects and 36,074 rooms and
- Marriott’s Fairfield Inn with 285 projects and 27,220 rooms.
In the upscale pipeline, the top brands are:
- Marriott’s Residence Inn with 188 projects and 23,725 rooms,
- Marriott’s SpringHill Suites with 147 projects and 17,293 rooms; and
- Hilton Garden Inn with 135 projects and 17,914 rooms.
These two chain scales are forecasted to have the highest guestroom growth rates over the next two years. The upper-midscale chain scale is forecasted to grow its guestroom census 5.3 percent in 2017 and 6.3 percent in 2018. The upscale chain scale is expected to grow its guestroom census 5.7 percent in 2017 and 5.8 percent in 2018.