Strong Q1 airline earnings on international routes are a 30-60 day leading indicator for gateway hotel demand, and most properties gutted their international sales infrastructure during COVID and never rebuilt it.
Over 400 workers at a 1,200-key convention hotel walked off the job for 40 days and came back with a $20 floor heading to $22. If you're operating in a union-eligible market and think this stays in Texas, you're not paying attention.
2025 gave us the first full-year decline in occupancy and RevPAR since the pandemic... but the executives describing it as "uneven" are burying the real story. Some operators thrived. Some got crushed. And the difference wasn't luck.
Congress can't get an immigration bill across the finish line, and if you're running a hotel that depends on immigrant labor for the back of the house... which is most of you... the staffing math you budgeted for 2026 is already wrong.
