christian cross
Looking Ahead to the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh and Its Impact on the Hotel Market
Christian Cross | July 23, 2024
Earlier this year, the Steel City was announced as the host for the 2026 NFL Draft. The scale and draw of this event make it highly sought after by cities, with many local and state governments actively competing for the opportunity to serve as the host city. Following nearly half a century of being held in New York City (1965–2014), the NFL Draft began to be rotated to other cities in 2015. The number of visitors attracted to the host cites and the economic impact of this event have been significant, peaking in the pre-pandemic period when Nashville was host, boasting an attendance of 600,000 people and a total economic impact of $224 ...
Unique Factors Shaping the Buffalo Lodging Market
Christian Cross | June 13, 2024
As a border town, Buffalo has historically been heavily reliant on Canadian visitors and U.S. travelers stopping over en route to/from Canada for lodging demand. Based on a recent hotel market study and many hotel appraisals in the greater Buffalo-Niagara area I have performed, it is clear that traffic volume at the land crossings has an impact on these border markets. Below is a brief timeline of the changing restrictions for border crossings from 2020 until 2023. Key Dates for Border-Crossing Restrictions As the one-year anniversary recently passed since all COVID-19 border restrictions were lifted, I wanted to take a look at the co...
Significant Changes and Transformative Projects Coming to Syracuse
Christian Cross | July 10, 2023
By Christian Cross The Syracuse area has experienced a fairly muted economy for decades. The city benefits from relatively stable demand generators in the higher-education, research, and healthcare sectors, which has allowed the city’s lodging market to fully recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, all lodging metrics within the defined competitive set exceeded the highs of the pre-pandemic period of 2019. Significant average rate growth and a modest increase in occupancy resulted in healthy RevPAR increases. Factors that contributed to this recovery include growth at the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate ...
Beyond the PGA Championship: Exciting Happenings in Rochester
Christian Cross | June 16, 2023
By Christian Cross Having recently attended the 105th PGA Championship and worked on nearly half a dozen projects in the Rochester area over the past several months, I want to highlight the upcoming events and projects in this busy market. Tourism Highlights Rochester benefits from its location at the base of Lake Ontario, and as Visit Rochester brands the city, it is “the western gateway, or the ‘front door,’ to the majestic Finger Lakes region.” (My previous article on the Finger Lakes lodging market can be found here.) In addition, a number of tourism and leisure attractions in the area create demand for local hotels, i...
Strong Rate Growth and New Travelers Discovering New York State’s Resort Markets
Christian Cross | September 26, 2022
By Christian Cross While New York City and its metropolitan area have largely steered the conversation around New York State’s pandemic recovery, with some secondary discussion of larger markets such as Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, and Syracuse, in my opinion, the state’s resort markets have been the most interesting and have offered some of the biggest surprises to me and local market participants. I moved back to New York State to launch our firm’s Buffalo office in the middle of the pandemic and began working on assignments in the Finger Lakes, the Adirondacks, and the Catskills/Hudson Valley regions. While each individual ...
HVS Market Pulse: Buffalo, New York
Christian Cross | February 5, 2021
By Christian Cross Like so many markets throughout the United States, the decade of growth following the Great Recession benefited the Buffalo metropolitan market. Developers started to take notice of the strength of this market, and new supply began to increase. While hotels were being built throughout the country, the increase in supply within this market was notable, especially in the upscale and upper-upscale segments. Since 2014, supply has increased more than 45%, with the following hotels having entered the relatively small Downtown submarket: Source: HVS In addition to all the new supply, the former Comfort Suites was ren...
Hotel Cleanliness Policies in the Time of COVID-19
Christian Cross | September 17, 2020
By Christian Cross Outbreak and the Initial Response at the Height of Impact COVID-19 has posed challenges never seen before by the hotel industry, requiring owners, managers, and brands to take new precautions to keep both guests and staff safe. The industry faced the added challenge of not only creating a safe lodging environment but also creating the impression of security to give guests the confidence to travel again. As the virus rapidly spread around the globe, brands quickly got to work on creating new standards to implement throughout their chains; however, local owners and management companies needed to take immediate steps to addr...
