The IHG Owners Association has announced the Owner Confidence Index (OCI), a new quarterly measure of hotel owner sentiment on revenue, profitability and new hotel development.
The first OCI survey, fielded in September 2026, finds U.S. hotel owners less optimistic than the market forecast. The overall confidence index registered 45.2, below the neutral mark of 50. The gap is widest on profit: CoStar projects RevPAR and GOPPAR growth over the next 12 months, but owners say rising costs are eroding the gains before they reach the bottom line.
Among owners who provided written feedback, 53% cited softer demand and travel or economic uncertainty, 45% pointed to rising operating costs and inflation and 15% noted fuel and gas price increases. Respondents could cite more than one factor.
“Hotel owners have a uniquely informed view of shifts in demand, operating costs and development conditions,” said Steve Sickel, CEO of IHG Owners Association. “Because owners trust the Association with a candid assessment of their businesses across hotel classes and geographies, we can turn those perspectives into a meaningful measure of market confidence. We are beginning in the U.S., and over time OCI will create a valuable record of how owner sentiment moves with the market—one we plan to extend to members in other regions.”
“OCI gives forecasters a valuable new lens on the hotel industry,” said Isaac Collazo, vice president, analytics of STR, a CoStar Group company. “By pairing owner sentiment with market forecasts, it can help us better understand where expectations are shifting and what those changes may signal for the industry.”
Each quarter, OCI will convert owner responses into a 0–100 score, with 50 representing a neutral outlook. The results are paired with CoStar’s rolling 12-month forecasts for revenue per available room (RevPAR), gross operating profit per available room (GOPPAR) and supply growth.
Established in 1955 by Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson, the IHG Owners Association is a global organization representing owners of IHG Hotels & Resorts properties. Most of its more than 5,000 members worldwide are multi-brand owners and operators whose portfolios span major brand families, giving the independent, not-for-profit Association a perspective on hotel ownership that extends beyond one hotel company.