Hotel performance in Texas is expected to vary significantly across many major submarkets during 2025, according to CBRE’s February 2025 Hotel Horizons forecasts. Convention center expansion projects are among the most significant factors that will determine lodging performance in the state’s major markets.

The CBRE Hotel Horizons sample includes five markets in Texas: Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio. From 2021 through 2024, Austin, Fort Worth and San Antonio experienced significant increases in RevPAR growth, primarily driven by leisure business. Dallas and Houston, which are more corporate business-driven markets, lagged the other major Texas markets early on in the post-pandemic recovery, but both have since fully recovered. All five Texas markets are far exceeding 2019 RevPAR levels.
Convention center expansion and renovation projects will be major demand disruptors for these markets in the coming years. The city of Arlington, in the Fort Worth market, recently completed a major expansion of their convention center. This, coupled with an influx of new residents and corporate relocations, should continue to fuel the growth in the Fort Worth hotel market. Austin (Austin Convention Center), Dallas (Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center), Houston (George R. Brown Convention Center), and San Antonio (Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center) all have major renovation projects planned or underway that will improve each market’s ability to attract larger conventions and events, but hotel performance could be impacted during construction. While these projects are underway, fewer events can be held at these convention centers which will have a negative impact on hotel performance in the short-term.
The shift towards “bleisure” travel will continue to be a positive for the Austin hotel market as business travelers are increasingly extending their stays to enjoy leisure activities. San Antonio is also expected to experience continued growth in leisure demand. The normalization of travel patterns after the pandemic has helped the Dallas and Houston hotel markets in recent years and is expected to continue.
Kevin Donahue is an executive vice president for CBRE Hotels Valuations and is a team lead for the South Central region. To learn more about the Hotel Horizons forecast reports for 65 markets in the United States, visit pip.cbrehotels.com/hotelhorizons.