The hotel development pipeline includes 5,936 hotels with 659,790 rooms according to a report released last week.
This represents a 0.2-percent decrease in rooms over July 2008 and a 16.9-percent increase over August 2007.
Of the total pipeline, 199,504 rooms are not currently affiliated with a brand or chain.
Commenting on the regional U.S. pipeline, Duane Vinson, vice president of Smith Travel Research explained, "Development follows those regions with high demand.
The West South Central Region, with a 55.3 percent increase in the active pipeline, has seen the number of rooms rented increase by 3.7 percent for the first seven months of the year."
At the close of August, the number of rooms in the pipeline for each STR Region is as follows:
U.S. Pipeline by Region Number of Rooms & Percent Change (August 2008 vs. August 2007)
"Financing and high development costs are having a strong impact on projects planned for New England and the Pacific regions," added Vinson.
"With the collapse or near collapse of many of the nation's largest investment firms, one can only wonder what impact this will have on large number of hotels projects that have been sitting quietly in the final planning stage awaiting an economic recovery."
* Includes those projects In Construction, Final Planning and Planning phases.
** Geographic Regions
- Pacific: Alaska - California - Hawaii - Oregon - Washington
- Mountain: Arizona - Colorado - Idaho - Montana - Nevada - New Mexico - Utah - Wyoming
- West North Central: Iowa - Kansas - Minnesota - Missouri - Nebraska - North Dakota - South Dakota
- West South Central: Arkansas - Louisiana - Oklahoma - Texas
- East North Central: Illinois - Indiana - Michigan - Ohio - Wisconsin
- East South Central: Alabama - Kentucky - Mississippi - Tennessee
- Middle Atlantic: New Jersey - New York - Pennsylvania
- New England: Connecticut - Maine - Massachusetts - New Hampshire - Rhode Island - Vermont
- South Atlantic: Delaware - Florida - Georgia - Maryland - North Carolina - South Carolina - Virginia - Washington DC - West Virginia
