For the first time in several years, U.S. hotels in 2011 are investing more in capital expenditures than the year prior,

although spending levels remain well below record levels seen in 2007, according to research issued by New York University Tisch Center for Hospitality dean Bjorn Hanson. Hanson projected hotels this year will spend about $3.5 billion on capital expenditures—renovations, new amenities and added services, for example—an increase of 30 percent over 2010. Hotels had at least $5 billion in capital expenditures annually from 2006 through 2008. Hanson wrote that the record spending during those years had left U.S. hotels "in possibly the best physical condition ever," but many hotel rooms now require reinvestment. Several hotel companies that had relaxed brand standards and maintenance requirements for owners during the recession now are becoming more aggressive in enforcing them, he wrote.