(NEW YORK, NY) -- Luxury hotels in the U.S. and the Caribbean could be in for a rough ride this year and also in the next several upcoming seasons, Marriott International president Arne Sorenson told a recent Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit in New York City.
 
Properties with $1,000-per-night-room rates, along with lavish resorts in the Caribbean are looking at a lengthy recovery period, far longer than the lower-priced lodging community, Sorenson said in a telephone interview with Reuters.
 
Numerous smaller projects in the Caribbean that rely partly on residences "may never come back because they rely on the kind of lavish spending that has (largely) gone out of vogue with travelers," Sorenson told Reuters.
 
"They require really conspicuous consumption to support their entire business model," Sorenson said.
 
PricewaterhouseCoopers notes that while room rates sank nearly 9 percent for the US hotel industry as a whole in 2009, the luxury hotel segment saw their rates tumble more than 16 percent.
 
Reuters reports many hotels have already buckled under their debt loads "as lower room rates constrain cash flow used to service these (loan) payments."
 
For instance, the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC stated last year it would no longer be able to meet debt service.
 
And in Marriott's own family, Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., a Marriott division, previously stated it plans to close its Lake Las Vegas property this year.
 

Arne Sorenson

Renaissance Mayflower Hotel