Miami faces glut of upscale hotel rooms

Miami

HOTELS in sun-drenched Miami are getting burned by a pullback in Brazilian travel and a building boom that has added thousands of rooms to the market.

Nightly room costs are dropping. Greater Miami's revenue per available room - a key measure of rates and occupancies known as RevPAR - has fallen each month this year, and in April was the worst of the top 25 US markets, according to STR, a data provider for the lodging industry. Marriott International Inc, set to become the world's largest hotel operator, said on its first-quarter earnings call that Miami is among its weakest US areas.