The number of hotel openings has been in a long, steady climb since 2004. It will peak in 2010, when 1,164 hotels open in the U.S., according to Lodging Econometrics, a New Hampshire-based research firm.

The decade started with 1,261 openings. Numbers decreased yearly until 2004, when the industry saw fewer than 600 openings. Last year, 986 new properties opened, and the forecast is for 1,218 openings this year.

Lodging Econometrics made the forecast based on data current at the end of the second quarter and, as the firm says, it “doesn't account for any abrupt changes in economic or lodging operation fundamentals that would alter these trends.”