Texas leads hotel building boom in US

New York

HOTEL construction continues apace in the United States, and dozens of new properties are expected to open this year in two major corporate and tourist destinations: New York and Los Angeles. But the three other cities with the most hotels projected to open in 2017, according to the industry research company STR, are all in Texas - Dallas, Houston and Austin.

There had not been a hotel building boom in Texas in about a decade, said Daniel Moon, the vice-president of the Sam Moon Group, a developer of shopping centres and hotels in the Dallas area. But recent relocations by corporate headquarters and population growth have been driving new demand, and there is still plenty of open space to build around the major cities, he said. Mr Moon's company, which has been in business since the mid-1980s, is building its own first full-service hotel, a Marriott Renaissance in Plano, part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.