It's been a strong year for corporate travel in general, with both hotel chains and airlines reporting robust growth as businesses continue to send their employees across the world.On their earnings calls in recent weeks for third quarter results, top executives across travel expressed optimism for the future of continued corporate travel growth. Still, signs are emerging that an economic slowdown is coming soon.Hotel rates are high, putting pressure on the people who plan meetings and events. There are also lingering concerns around the effect that ongoing trade wars and negotiations around the world will have, along with uncertainty creeping into global stock markets. While the major players in corporate travel are getting along more nicely than before, the collaboration may not last if financial pressure increases.Here's the latest from leaders across the industry on the state of corporate travel and their efforts to attract business travelers.MARRIOTT CEO ARNE SORENSON ON CORPORATE RATES AND MEETING PLANNERS"We have regular dialogue with our big corporate customers as it relates to both group and their transient travelers. We have regular sessions with group planners. Sometimes, those are folks in intermediary platforms. And often, those are folks internally at corporate or association customers. I think overwhelmingly, the response has been not just positive but enthusiastically positive. They appreciate the breadth of choice."They appreciate the execution that we're bringing to the portfolio of both group boxes in which we are, far and away, the biggest in the industry. And I think we're hearing from our association corporate group customers that they love the breadth of choice that we offer within our portfolio. And similarly, I think we hear from the business transient traveler that they like very much the breadth of choice that we're offering. And so when we see our share of the total travel book of some of our biggest corporate clients, we see that share generally growing, and the relationship is generally very robust...

Hotels are doing better than ever. More rooms have been occupied in 2018 at higher rents than ever before."We are at peak performance--and we don't expect that to change much," says Jan Freitag, senior vice president of lodging insights for research firm STR.Hotel owners still worry about the rising costs to operate their businesses, however. Even though the average revenue produced by hotel rooms is likely to keep rising, room rates are not growing as quickly as the cost of operations."The name of the game is cost control," says Freitag.Demand for hotel rooms is still risingHotel rooms are full in cities and towns across the United States. Occupancy rates reached a cyclical high in 2018, according to Robin Trantham, a consultant with research firm CoStar Portfolio Strategy.Over the 12 months that ended in September, occupancy across the U.S. averaged 66.7 percent. "We are selling two out of three rooms all year," says Freitag. "We are at the strongest demand level ever."

It took AccorHotels only 18 months to bring its hostel-like concept Jo&Joe to life.The hospitality giant had been watching the sector, studying where it might be able to make its mark before it hit on, what it thought, was the right approach."The market has changed and for us it was a time just to see that this kind of market is going more and more professional with bigger brands, with real concepts and we decided to get into it," Francois Leclerc, vice president of brand and operations at Jo&Joe, told Skift.The likes of Accor and now Hilton, think the hostel market is ripe for disruption. These are not scrappy upstarts but rather the established hotel companies looking to use their scale to pick up a different type of consumer.Hostels certainly aren't a new invention; they have been have been around for more than a century but up until fairly recently they weren't part of the wider hospitality conversation. Sure, as a business model in hospitality they've been evolving in their own way.Way back when, It was those people passionate about traveling who decided to lease their own building, sort out a supply of bunks, and throw open their doors. It wasn't necessarily about making a truck load of cash, but more about bringing people together.Big hoteliers and investors hadn't taken much notice, favoring other areas such as vacation rentals.

With suburban hotel performance surpassing the growth rate for urban properties, many hoteliers are turning to secondary and tertiary markets to meet the demand for up-and-coming travel destinations. Among them is the management company Charlestowne Hotels. Its President and CEO Michael W. Tall says that the company is making the growth of boutique properties in second- and third-tier cities a main focus of their 2019 business plan. In a recent interview with LODGING, Tall described this tertiary-tier tourism boom and his company's participation in it.Tall notes growing interest in secondary and tertiary markets across the industry. "Now more than ever, the interests of travelers--including those termed 'adventure travelers'--are piqued by the unknown and unseen. As a result, travel to small, off-the-beaten-path towns has grown." However, he observes, a significant portion of these travelers have no interest in roughing it. "They bring with them their big-city expectations: Even a one-stoplight town needs quality and interesting accommodations."Tall says Charlestowne recognized a need for such accommodations via lifestyle hotels that connect with their local community and deliver an authentic sense of place in these markets--including university towns and others considered to be "under the radar". Tall points out numerous advantages of university markets in particular, including their consistency and predictability.