2025 hospitality market outlook | with Jan Freitag from Costar Group
January 22, 2025
In this episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens sits down with Jan Freitag, National Director of Hospitality Analytics at CoStar Group. Drawing from over two decades of experience and CoStar's vast dataset covering 192 countries, Jan shares his expert predictions for the hospitality industry in 2025, discussing everything from RevPAR growth to the evolving luxury travel market. He also offers valuable insights into how wealth effects are driving luxury hotel performance and why experiential travel is reshaping revenue management strategies.
In this insightful episode of Hotel Moment, Karen Stephens speaks with Jan Freitag, National Director of Hospitality Analytics at CoStar Group. Together, they explore:
- The 2025 market outlook, with projected RevPAR growth of 1.8% and the continued bifurcation between luxury and economy segments
- How the "wealth effect" is driving unprecedented growth in luxury and ultra-luxury hotels
- The evolution of luxury travel from purely leisure to a mix of leisure, corporate, and group business
- The importance of total stay value versus just room revenue
- How direct bookings and loyalty programs are reshaping revenue management strategies
- The impact of post-COVID work patterns on group bookings and corporate travel
Jan brings unique insights from CoStar's extensive database, which captures 82% of all US hotel room revenue across 192 countries. His analysis provides valuable guidance for hoteliers navigating the evolving hospitality landscape in 2025.
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Episode Highlights:
[07:35] 2025 market forecast - Jan reveals CoStar's projections for 2025, predicting a 1.8% RevPAR growth with ADR growth making up the majority at around 1.6-1.7%. He notes that 2025 will likely mirror 2024's trends, including strong performance in the luxury segment, robust international outbound travel from the US, and limited pipeline growth.
[09:25] The wealth effect on luxury hotels - Jan explains how the "wealth effect" - driven by strong stock market performance, high home values, and low unemployment - is fueling unprecedented growth in luxury hotels. He notes that the number of hotels commanding $1,000+ ADR has tripled from 150 in 2019 to 450 in 2024, reflecting strong demand for high-end experiences.
[11:43] Evolution of luxury travel - The conversation explores how luxury travel is evolving from purely leisure to include more group and corporate business. While this shift might impact ADR growth rates, it represents a healthy diversification of revenue streams and reflects changing workplace dynamics post-COVID.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
02:40 - Jan's background and journey to CoStar
04:49 - CoStar's global data coverage
06:19 - The difference between interesting and actionable data
07:35 - 2025 market forecast
09:25 - Understanding the wealth effect
11:43 - The evolution of luxury travel
14:05 - Total stay value vs room revenue
15:14 - Direct bookings and loyalty programs
17:54 - Post-COVID travel patterns
21:24 - Corporate travel and group meetings
23:35 - Mentorship in hospitality
24:07 - Advice for leveraging data in 2025
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.
Hotel Moment Podcast is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so
Previous guests include: Shannon Knapp, CEO of Leading Hotels of the World (LHW), Patrick Norton of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, Shawn Jereb of Montage International, Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, Jason Pirock of Springboard Hospitality, and many more.
Are you a hospitality industry leader with insights to share? We're always looking for innovative voices to join our conversation about the future of hospitality technology.
If you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of Hotel Moment, we'd love to hear from you! Our podcast reaches thousands of hospitality professionals worldwide, and we're particularly interested in perspectives on:
- Innovation in hospitality technology
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