The total active U.S. hotel development pipeline includes 4,554 projects with 487,831 rooms, according to the July 2009 STR/TWR/Dodge Construction Pipeline Report released this week. This represents a 26.2-percent decrease in the number of rooms in the total active pipeline compared to July 2008. The total active pipeline data includes projects in the In-Construction, Final Planning and Planning stages, but does not include projects in the Pre-Planning stage.

“As funding issues and economic uncertainly continues, construction in all chain scales continues to fall,” said Duane Vinson, vice president of content management at STR. “The overall active pipeline shows a decline of 2.7 percent; however, Final Planning posted positive growth from last month of 6.6 percent. Will we see a return of where we were in June 2008 with an influx of projects holding in Final Planning? At this point I don’t believe we are certain of this, but considering we’ve seen a month-over-month increase for the past three consecutive months in Final Planning rooms it is something we should continue to watch.”

The seven chain-scale segments reported mixed results in the change in number of rooms in the Final Planning phase when reported in year-over-year measurements. The Luxury segment was the only segment to report an increase of rooms in the Final Planning stage, with a 37.0-percent jump to 1,197 rooms. The Economy segment reported the largest decrease of rooms in the Final Planning stage, dropping 65.2-percent to 3,652 rooms. The Upper Upscale segment followed with a 45.7-percent drop to 2,536 rooms in the Final Planning stage.