Even though some existing hotels remain closed or are operating at partial capacity, the United States from March 1 to Sept. 30 opened more hotels and rooms than any other country, according to STR.
The U.S. during that seven-month period opened 521 properties, accounting for 55,395 rooms. Five other countries opened more than 2,000 rooms during this time: China (23,470 rooms), Japan (16,304 rooms), Germany (9,027 rooms), Canada (2,748 rooms) and the U.K. (2,481 rooms).
For the full year through September, however, project deferrals in the U.S. have significantly increased. Year to date through September, projects that were deferred in the U.S. totaled 211, a 56 percent increase from the same period last year. In addition, 232 projects were abandoned, a 16 percent year-over-year decrease, though projects still are being moved into that category, according to STR.
"Generally, projects that have already broke ground are going to be finished—but abandonments and deferrals, which are becoming more common, affect the total room count in the pipeline," said STR SVP of lodging insights Jan Freitag. "The movement of projects into these phases is playing into the overall slowing of development activity because there isn't that constant flow of projects from planning to construction, because the record-breaking demand of 2019 isn't there waiting for new hotels to open."
The number of rooms in construction in the U.S. has declined from the country's peak of 220,207 in April. By September, 216,083 rooms were in construction, which still was up 6.1 percent year over year.