A borrower’s ability to meet their debt-service obligations and the underlying value of their collateral are two of the most critical issues facing hotel lenders entering 2009, according to a special analysis by PKF Hospitality Research, the research affiliate of PKF Consulting – which has offices in Boston.

The research, based on the firm’s proprietary data, found the number of full-service U.S. hotels lacking the cash flow needed to pay their debt will increase by 25 percent in 2009, and property values will likely decrease another 20.1 percent (after a 14.1 percent decline in 2008).

The combination of a weak economy and rising levels of supply have caused one of the deepest and longest recessions in the history of the hotel industry, the firm said. As a result, the newest forecast produced by PKF-HR, based on preliminary year-end data from Smith Travel Research (STR), projects the average U.S. hotel will experience a 9.8 percent decline in the revenue received from the rental of guest rooms (RevPAR) in 2009, after having already declined an estimated 1.8 percent in 2008.

"The drop in RevPAR for 2009 will be the fourth-largest annual decline in this important measure since 1930," says R. Mark Woodworth, president of PKF-HR. "Further, PKF-HR is forecasting that the nation’s hotels will not experience a year-over-year quarterly increase in RevPAR until the third quarter of 2010."