ARLINGTON, Virginia—Knowland released the quarterly update to its U.S. Meetings Recovery Forecast and associated Top 25 U.S. Meetings Recovery Forecast, showing stable performance pushing slightly ahead of the Q2 2022 forecast.
Kristi White, chief product officer, Knowland, said, “The third quarter was the strongest of the year. Each month the recovery to 2019 has grown, with September nearing 90 percent recovery (89.5 percent). We are poised to reach greater than 90 percent recovery in at least one month in the last quarter. All of this is positioning 2023 to be a year of growth and not just another year of recovery.”
Knowland’s forecasts provide an overview of how the United States as a whole and the top 25 markets specifically will move through recovery.
- U.S. Markets Recovery Forecast update: Since the forecast in July, the outlook for the United States has been raised from 72.6 percent recovery by the end of 2022 to 73.1 percent recovery. Meeting levels will recover to 106.4 percent of 2019 levels in 2023 and 129.2 percent in 2024.
- Top 25 Markets Recovery Forecast update: For 14 markets, the recovery forecast improved from the last projection in July 2022, including Anaheim, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Norfolk, Oahu Island, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and St. Louis. The recovery forecast was lowered in seven markets, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Miami, Phoenix, Tampa, and Washington, D.C. The remaining Top 25 markets are unchanged from the prior quarter.
- Recovery by the end of 2022: Three markets will be fully recovered by the end of 2022: Dallas, Phoenix, and Nashville. All three of these markets are unchanged from the prior quarter. Tampa was removed from this category. Five markets will be above 80 percent recovery: Atlanta, Denver, New Orleans, Orlando, and Tampa. Tampa was lowered, and Orlando was raised to this category with this updated forecast. Fourteen markets will recover between 50 and 80 percent. Only Chicago and Philadelphia are forecasted to be less than 50 percent recovered by the end of 2022. Norfolk and Seattle moved into the 50-80 percent category, while Chicago moved down this quarter.
- Significant recovery in 2023: An additional 11 markets will achieve 100 percent or greater recovery, including Anaheim, Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, New Orleans, Oahu, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Tampa. Six will reach 90 percent or better recovery: Boston, Houston, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, and St. Louis. The remaining markets will fall between 80 and 90 percent in recovery.
- Closer to normal in 2024: Twenty-three of the 25 markets will achieve 100 percent or greater recovery by 2024. Chicago and Philadelphia will achieve 90 percent or better percent recovery during 2024.
