Corporate Travel Index

CTI Spotlight: Dallas

The Dallas area features substantial new hotel supply and plenty more to come, and a major convention center construction project could offer buyers an opportunity in Texas.

By Chris Davis / June 12, 2025 / Contact Reporter

Dallas Q1 2025 total daily cost: $379

Average daily hotel cost: $215
Average daily car rental cost: $49
Average daily dining cost: $115
Total cost change from Q4 2024: +4.8%

Negotiation Game: Dallas is the undisputed champion of the U.S. hotel development pipeline. In fact, Dallas (including its surrounding locales like Fort Worth and Arlington) has been the city with the most hotels in the U.S. pipeline every quarter since the second quarter of 2021, according to Lodging Econometrics, even as new high-end supply opened. But Dallas hotel occupancy in 2024 slipped a bit year over year to 65 percent, according to lodging consulting firm HVS, still below its pre-pandemic average of 68 percent to 71 percent. While the area's average daily rate is on the rise—ADR in 2024 at hotels in Dallas' central business district increased 3.6 percent year over year, according to advocacy group Downtown Dallas, north of national averages—and Texas' popularity as a destination for corporate relocation remains a reliable engine of business travel demand, the new supply, lower occupancy and a major disruption to group and meeting demand could offer negotiating opportunity.

The Approach: That disruption is the renovation of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, a massive long-term $3.7 billion construction project that will dramatically overhaul and expand the 52-year-old facility that until 2013 was known as the Dallas Convention Center. That project isn't scheduled to finish before 2028, with groups meeting in the new space in 2029. The construction will limit hotel occupancy associated with large events that will, at least temporarily, relocate to other destinations during the process. At least until the reimagined convention center opens, there's the possibility of a favorable market for buyers.

Keep in Mind: The KBHCC isn't the only major travel-related construction project in the Dallas area. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport has broken ground on construction of Terminal F, the airport's long-planned sixth terminal. The first phase of the $4 billion project, which will include 31 new gates for American Airlines, a parking garage and a Skylink inter-terminal people mover, currently is slated for completion in 2027.

What's Happening in Dallas

Dallas' pipeline may reign supreme, but some properties recently have graduated from the pipeline to open for business. In March, Hilton Worldwide opened Graduate by Hilton Dallas, a 95-room property near Southern Methodist University's campus. Hilton last year acquired the upper-upscale college-centric Graduate chain, and the new property is the first such in Texas.

Hilton in the past few months also opened a pair of Home2 Suites properties in Dallas, and Marriott International opened a TownePlace Suites in nearby Forney, Texas, and a Residence Inn in Grand Prairie.

But several projects newly opened or planned in and around Dallas are high-end. Chief among them is the Loews Arlington Hotel & Convention Center in Arlington, one of the largest full-service hotels to open in the United States in 2024. The 888-room property, which opened in February 2024, also features 266,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting and convention space and five restaurants.

The upscale Drury Plaza Hotel Dallas Arlington also opened last year with 266 guest rooms and 7,000 square feet of meeting space.

Additionally, the 224-room Hall Park Hotel, part of Marriott's Autograph Collection, opened last year.

Auberge Resorts Collection will manage The Knox, a luxury property with 140 guest rooms and suites and 48 residences in Dallas' Knox St. neighborhood, set to open next year.

Four Seasons is building the Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences Dallas at Turtle Creek, a 35-story building on Turtle Creek Blvd. that is planned to include 240 guest rooms along with 118 residences. The property is slated to open in late 2027.

American dominates DFW, joining with subsidiary Envoy air to carry more than 77 percent of passengers on airport routes in the 12 months ending in February, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Total arriving passengers in that timeframe increased more than 5 percent year over year to nearly 36.3 million, and the number of departing flights increased nearly 7 percent.

Dallas' other airport, Love Field, long ago a controversial destination for passenger service, has settled into essentially maxed-out service dominated by Southwest Airlines. Southwest carried more than 97 percent of Love Field passengers in the 12 months ending in February, and Alaska Airlines, which had offered Seattle service, pulled out of the airport in May.

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