US Lodging Trends: Short-Term Rentals and Cruise Drive Recovery
In 2024, US short-term rentals added more incremental demand than hotels and cruises combined—plus, cruises continue to punch above their weight.
Growth in short-term rental and cruise demand bolstered total recovery for lodging. Strong demand gains in both sectors powered a full US total lodging demand recovery to 2019 levels in 2023, alongside air travel. However, the uneven recovery across sectors remains striking.
Hotels
US hotel demand has been in a state of “nearly recovered” since 2022, where it fell just three percentage points short. Despite business, international, and leisure demand strengthening primarily toward large urban centers in 2024, hotel demand still has not fully recovered.
Looking closer, recovery has been far from even within hotel scales. Economy hotel demand declined for much of 2023 and 2024, while luxury hotel demand fully recovered with continued healthy growth.
In 2024, US hotels are expected to add 4.4M sold room nights—less than both US short-term rentals and cruises.
Short-Term Rentals
Short-term rental demand recovered in 2021, at the beginning of what some call the “revenge” travel era. Despite that boost, short-term rental demand continues to post robust year-over-year gains.
In 2024, US short-term rentals are expected to add 15.6M sold listing nights year-over-year—more than US hotels and cruises combined.
Cruises
Cruise demand suffered most from the pandemic, facing near-collapse in 2020 and 2021. A new wave of cruise enthusiasm has swelled in the years since. Fully recovered since 2023, cruise demand posted exceptional growth through 2024 as occupancy continued to ramp up—even with the addition of new, large vessels in Florida.
Accounting for just 3.1% of total lodging demand compared to hotels’ dominant 82.7%, US-based cruises are expected to add 5.4 million sold cabin nights year-over-year in 2024.
US Lodging Demand vs. GDP
US lodging demand increased slower than real US GDP. Despite the 31.0% and 29.2% recovery above 2019 levels for short-term rentals and cruise, respectively, total lodging is expected to reach just 3% above 2019 levels in 2024. By comparison, real GDP is expected to expand to 12.5% above its 2019 levels in 2024.
We explore these trends in greater depth in our latest Research Briefing.