Major hotel chains say a boost in business travel stays is driving overall recovery in the sector.

In second-quarter earnings calls, several hotel executives said an uptick in weekly business travel spending is contributing momentum in an industry that has been fighting to reverse a slump amid continued economic and geopolitical anxieties, including the on-off conflict in Iran and spiking fuel prices. 

“The biggest single change we've seen over the last couple of quarters is midweek business transient growth, which is exactly what we've been dying to see,” Hilton Worldwide CEO Christopher Nassetta said during the company’s earnings call last month. 

That growth is compounding already mounting hotel activity by leisure and luxury travelers, prompting many hotels to boost revenue per available room expectations for the rest of 2026. And in some hotels, the surge in data center development is contributing to the rise.

“Approximately 45% of our U.S. extended-stay portfolio is located within 10 miles of major data centers, where those hotels generated approximately 100 basis points higher RevPAR growth than the system average during the second quarter,” Choice Hotels Chief Financial Officer Scott Oaksmith said during a Wednesday earnings call. 

In Q3 2025, rising operating costs drove overall RevPAR down. And room rates for luxury hotels bucked an overall decline in average daily room rates. But this year, CoStar and Tourism Economics are predicting the average daily room rate to increase more than 3%.

The trend appears to be changing as lower-tier hotel room demand, especially geared toward business and middle-class travelers, catches up.

The Global Business Travel Association projects that global corporations will increase travel spending by 7.2% this year, with worldwide business trips expected to surpass 1.84 billion. Last year, companies spent $1.6T globally on travel, and that number is expected to surpass $2T by 2030, according to GBTA’s annual report.

“It’s definitely picking back up,” Pete Patel, CEO of Atlanta-based hotel development group Nexera Capital, told Bisnow. “I think, hopefully, things have turned for our industry.”

Patel said he has seen an uptick in weekly business travel demand at his firm’s hotel portfolio, which includes the newly delivered Moxy by Marriott in Downtown Atlanta, the Hyatt Place in Nashville and the Embassy Suites in Dallas.

Hilton tallied a 3.9% year-over-year increase in RevPAR, which Nassetta said was “driven by underlying demand recovery in the U.S., where business transient and group both exceeded expectations.”  

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts CEO Geoffrey Ballotti also highlighted “continued recovery in both leisure travel and everyday business travel demand.” Ballotti didn’t disclose specific dollar impacts but said demand contributed to overall RevPAR increases.

Leisure and business demand activity exceeded Wyndham’s expectations by a full percentage point and prompted the hotelier to increase its RevPAR outlook from flat to 2% for the rest of 2026, Chief Financial Officer Amit Sripathi said during Wyndham’s earnings call. 

RevPAR at Hyatt’s select-service hotels rose 3.5%, “driven by improving business transient demand and easier comparisons to last year,” Hyatt Chief Financial Officer Joan Bottarini said during the company’s earnings call.

Business travel stays in hotel REIT RLJ Lodging Trust’s portfolio jumped 10%, CoStar reported. The REIT owns 92 hotels under such brands as Courtyard by Marriott, Residence Inn by Marriott, Moxy Hotels, Hilton Garden Inn and Hyatt Place.

RLJ CEO Leslie Hale said on the company’s earnings call that industries including tech, finance, healthcare and defense all increased their weekly travel, which helped push room revenues up, according to CoStar.

For some hotels, rising investment in infrastructure and data centers in particular has been a contributing factor.

“Extended-stay continues to benefit from a diverse mix of longer-stay demand drivers, including workforce-related travel, relocations, infrastructure investment and manufacturing activity,” Oaksmith said on Choice Hotels' earnings call. 

Data center hyperscalers are expected to make $1T in artificial intelligence-related investments globally this year, including more than $580B in the U.S., Goldman Sachs Research forecast this month.

Nassetta credited the capital expenditures on data center infrastructure for Hilton’s midscale and upper-midscale brands experiencing a “very, very big turnaround” in the second quarter.

While Nexera doesn’t own any hotels close to data center projects in the U.S., Patel said his portfolio is still seeing an uptick in business travel.

“People are back doing conferences and doing meetings. People are getting out, especially in the business community,” Patel said. “We hope the war is over sooner rather than later. But again, people are getting out and traveling, which is great for us.”