The City of Angels has a clear “why” for hotel owners,
developers, operators: There are always new levers to pull.
LOS ANGELES – Hosting eight matches in the 2026 FIFA World Cup™, Super Bowl LXI in 2027 and, of course, the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, is tourism gold for Los Angeles and its hotel community.
But, as seminal as they are, these world-class events are just one facet of the increasingly layered demand generation strategy that’s fueling long-term opportunities for the hotel investment and operations community in the City of Angels.
“What is most exciting to hotel developers and operators is that Los Angeles is rolling out more and more demand drivers every year,” said Adam Burke, president and CEO, Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board (LA Tourism), in this exclusive interview. “Leveraging significant enhancements in infrastructure in tandem with the city’s leadership positions in sports & entertainment, arts & culture, culinary experiences, and a host of new, world-class attractions – as well as our diversified portfolio of domestic leisure, group, and international business – gives us the flexibility to keep the demand pipeline flowing ‒ and growing ‒ regardless of what’s happening with market dynamics.”
He added, “The overall plan is complex by necessity, but the goal is simple: Make sure we’re able to put heads in beds and give hoteliers the tools they need to optimize ROI.”
The upside of infrastructure
Burke acknowledged that infrastructure is not necessarily the most glamorous part of demand growth. “But it’s certainly one of the most important things when you think about how and where we can create demand and develop a seamless visitor experience,” he added.
The 2025 debut of LAX’s multi-billion-dollar upgrade/expansion remains the infrastructural headline. Airport improvements aim to silence long-standing consumer complaints about the difficulties of transiting the nation’s number two airport, stimulating demand among both domestic and international travelers. That will benefit hoteliers significantly in terms of raw visitor numbers, but it only gets travelers to LA’s doorstep.
It’s the enablers for spreading these increases throughout the city that broaden hoteliers’ scope for improving margins in existing hotels and targeting development across the region for the foreseeable future.
Mass transit that eliminates the city’s formidable drive times redefines occupancy/rate trends and site selection. It’s also sparking more business growth, especially in LA’s cultural hubs and lesser-traveled neighborhoods. Start-ups by a diverse range of entrepreneurs are bringing new business and visitor markets to historically underserved locales, creating fresh demand for restaurants and, in some areas, hotels.
“The fact that in the next 24 months, LAX’s highly anticipated Automated People Mover and the LAX/Metro Transit Center Station will be coming online will completely transform the visitor experience,” Burke noted.
“Huge” untapped market potential
Professional meetings and events “are among the largest unseen drivers of our local economy,” Burke said. For the past decade, professional meetings and events have driven approximately 40% of the travel industry’s total economic impact in Los Angeles.
That contribution could grow dramatically if the city delivers on expectations to approve expansion plans for the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC) by the end of this year.
The current footprint limits LACC to meetings and conventions that require no more than 350,000 sq. ft. of contiguous space. That effectively rules out everything from association business to trade fairs that attract upwards of 40,000 delegates. Planned modernization would bring the total to 750,000 sq. ft. It would also create a sizable hotel inventory gap.
“It’s been a bit of a chicken and egg issue,” Burke said. “We need a bigger, modernized convention center to drive more hotel development, but we have to have more rooms in inventory to secure large conventions. That represents a lot of untapped market potential for hotel developers.”
He added, “Right now, our convention center ranks 21st in the nation. This [modernization] would vault us into the top 10. That would obviously be a total game-changer in terms of how many rooms we can fill.”
It also plays to Los Angeles’ strengths as a multi-faceted destination. Cross-marketing attractions and events that draw markets from sports fans to art lovers, cultural nomads to culinary tastemakers is key not only to getting a “yes” from MICE planners but also encouraging delegates to add pre- or post-event stays.
An Olympic-level playbook
The next four years are just the latest validation of LA’s enduring dominance as a host for world-class sports events.
LA’s hoteliers know what that means for occupancy and rate during these events. But they will also have access to medal-worthy coaching and training to take advantage of every demand driver long before the opening ceremony and long after the last medal has been presented.
“These major events are a starting line, not a finish line,” Burke said. Ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup™, for example, LA Tourism will partner with the City of Los Angeles and the LA Sports & Entertainment Commission to highlight LA-area sporting events over the next 18 months, such as the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Initiatives like this transform a single event into a sustainable platform for both short- and long-term revenue growth.
Right now, our convention center ranks 21st in the nation. This [modernization] would vault us into the top 10.
Adam Burke
“Our view is these events are opportunities to stimulate first-time visitation and capture share of mind,” Burke said. “Now, the question is, how can we do a better job of capturing those people who came into the market for these mega events and use that new exposure to the destination to drive long term demand?”
The answer to that question is a purpose-built business analytics platform that delivers predictive modeling through opt-in data. “We want to be able to use data in a way that proactively drives demand,” Burke said. The goal is to maximize the guest experience by providing greater personalization tailored to each visitor’s specific needs and preferences.
Those business analytics are just one aspect of the robust support hoteliers will have to maximize the opportunities in the Los Angeles market. LA Tourism is committed to helping hoteliers meet and exceed their proformas by optimizing their mix of business as market conditions warrant. Some of those decisions can be subtle: Burke noted that hotels that were part of the official room block during the Paris Olympics fared much better than those that didn’t.
New market growth
LA may be a sports-event all-star, but it’s also taking its place among the arts and cultural capitals of the world. With more than 475 museums and more on the way, Los Angeles has more museums per capita “by a significant margin” than any other U.S. city, including New York City, Burke pointed out.
What’s noteworthy for the hotel community is not only the draw of a destination with such a wide range of exhibits and experiences, but also the new-market appeal of major additions coming online in the near term. The roll-out of Destination Crenshaw enables LA to lay claim to having the U.S.’s largest installation of public art devoted to Black and African American arts and culture. “This will be a real magnet for those interested in this art and cultural immersion,” Burke said.
Millions of “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” fans are likely to swell the target market for creator George Lucas’s legacy project, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art coming online soon in Exhibition Park. And, from now through February 2025, PST ART: Art & Science Collide will showcase more than 800 individual artists across 70 California arts institutions.
The beauty of this free-flowing evolution of the arts and cultural scene is maximizing this sector’s appeal across formerly siloed markets. “What we're finding is, especially for a lot of medical, technology, and scientific groups, there’s a huge overlay with that demographic and arts and culture,” Burke said. It also gives the city a new reason for its growing business visitor base for aerospace, technology and medical campuses to add hotel nights.
LA’s culinary scene also bakes in a bounty of demand from burgers with bragging rights among celebrities to star chef stalwarts and cuisine on the cutting edge. Already a known hotspot for food and beverage, the city’s nearly 200 Michelin-recognized restaurants – including 25 Michelin Stars – cement its status as a must-visit destination for foodies.
Hotels are leading the next chapter in culinary evolution. Burke noted that standout LA hotels have taken F&B back in-house with superlative concepts, adding another revenue stream for hoteliers across the city.
A hot market, not a hot spot
Layered demand drivers create a market with lasting appeal, not just for hoteliers but for investors. “There is a real rigor in how people are evaluating proformas,” Burke said.
In LA, the numbers can meet that rigor – area-wide. “We look at LA as six distinct regions, and every one has huge development opportunities,” Burke added. “For example, if you look at Inglewood and South LA and out by LAX, there’s a huge increase in demand, and it's really driving rate and RevPAR for our airport hotels.” SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park, Intuit Dome and Cosm Los Angeles make a trifecta of tourism engines in communities that have not always seen equitable distribution of tourism, according to Burke. They also reinforce LA’s status as a destination where there are demand drivers 24/7/365.
Mary Scoviak is custom and design content director, Hotel Investment Today by Northstar.
The views and opinions expressed in this content do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel
Investment Today by Northstar or Northstar Travel Group and its affiliated companies.