Hotel industry pulse index edges up
October reading improves on September
Susan Avery -- Purchasing, 11/18/2009 3:05:12 PM
After stalling in September with a decline of 0.7%, the Hotel Industry's Pulse (HIP) index rose 0.2% in October. HIP is a composite indicator that gauges business activity in the U.S. hotel industry in real-time. The latest monthly change brought the index to a reading of 81. The index was set to equal 100 in 2000.
The growth rate in October improved from the previous month, with a reading of negative 9.4% compared with negative 12.2% reached in September. As a benchmark, March had been the worst month of the cycle when the six-month rate hit negative 23.4.
"It appears that the hotel industry recovery we saw during the summer hit a snag and is now hovering near flat levels," says Evanglos Simos, chief economist of e-forecasting.com.
Chad Church, industry research manager at Smith Travel Research in Hendersonville, Tenn., says "HIP should continue to maintain flat-to-slow growth throughout the end of 2009, barring an unseen event."
HIP is a hotel industry indicator that tracks monthly overall business conditions in the industry and points to changes in direction from growth to recession or vice versa.
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