ARLINGTON, Virginia—Knowland released the quarterly update to its U.S. Meetings Recovery Forecast (MRF) and associated Top 25 U.S. Meetings Recovery Forecast (MRF25) realizing strong performance ending 2022 and shifting 2023 higher than the Q3 forecast.
Kristi White, chief product officer, Knowland, said. “The fourth quarter outperformed the Knowland forecast by 8.4 percent, driven by top market growth. Additionally, both November and December exceeded 2019 numbers. This is the first time this has happened since the pandemic began. 2023 is poised to be a growth year, and hotels should be focused on optimizing demand and profitability.”
Knowland’s forecasts provide an overview of how the United States as a whole and the Top 25 Markets, specifically, will move through recovery. A breakdown of the details:
- U.S. Markets Recovery Forecast update—2022 outperformed in Q4, raising the year-end capture to 77.8 percent from the October 2022 forecast of 73.1 percent recovery. Compared to 2019, the updated 2023 and 2024 forecasts are:
- 2023 Recovery Forecast: 110.2 percent (106.4 percent in October forecast)
- 2024 Recovery Forecast: 133.3 percent (129.2 percent in October forecast
- Top 25 Markets Recovery Forecast update—Four markets (Dallas, Nashville, Phoenix, and Tampa) ended 2022 fully recovered to 2019 levels. Twelve markets outperformed the October forecast, including Anaheim, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Oahu Island, Orlando, San Diego, Seattle, and St. Louis. Thirteen markets are forecasted to achieve full recovery: Anaheim, Atlanta, Denver, Houston, Miami, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Oahu Island, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and St. Louis. Four markets (Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York) will end the year between 90 and 100 percent. The remaining four markets (Chicago, Las Vegas Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.) will be under 90 percent. All but two markets (Boston and Chicago) will be back to normal growth.
