US hotels spending big to keep up with latest market trends

New York

INVESTING at record levels, owners of hotels across the United States are doing everything from rewiring their rooms and buying smart TVs, to replacing bathtubs with more easily maintained walk-in showers.

These represent some of the latest capital expenditures by US hotel owners identified in a new survey by Bjorn Hanson, a professor at the Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism at New York University, who estimates that this spending will climb to US$6.4 billion this year, up 7 per cent from last year.