Things have gotten a little sordid on Curbed Atlanta today with all the strip club and crack distribution center news. So in an effort to clean things up and bring some holiday cheer, we have some good old-fashioned positive economic news for the coming year. Business travel is looking good for 2012! Building on a solid 2011, the projections for business travel numbers for 2012 are looking quite strong. This is good news for all businesses that cater to the traveler on the All-Mighty Corporate Card, but it's especially good news for hotel owners (and by extension, real estate developers looking to build hotels). New hotel product has been stagnant over the past couple years as the recession took its toll on both hotel occupancy and rates. 2011, however, was a good year for the industry and with a key consumer segment like business travel holding strong, the future looks bright. Solid back-to-back years of occupancy and rate growth are the fundamentals the hotel industry needs to get bulldozers fired up again. But don't start slamming the egg-nog quite yet, it will probably be some time before we see the re-birth of Ghosts-of-Projects-Passed.
· Deloitte Survey Predicts Increase in Business Travel in 2012 [Travel Pulse]
-Lee Kolber