San Diego County outpaces all California metro areas for new hotel rooms in 2025

Even as hotel development slowed across the state, San Diego County saw a surge in hotel openings in 2025, driven by the debut of the 1,600-room Gaylord Pacific Resort in Chula Vista.

The Gaylord hotel is so large that it almost singlehandedly helped boost statewide hotel real estate performance last year. The megaproject effectively made California totals look especially strong, despite relatively modest levels of new hotel room supply in several other counties, reports Atlas Hospitality Group, which released its year-end development report on Thursday.

Statewide, 50 hotel projects accounting for 7,100 rooms debuted in 2025, compared with 35 properties consisting of nearly 3,800 rooms a year earlier. The contrast was even more marked in San Diego County, where a total of five hotels accounting for 2,034 rooms opened last year, compared with just a single 179-room property opening in 2024, reported Atlas, an Orange County-based brokerage and advisory firm specializing in hotel properties.

Besides the Gaylord resort, other newly opened hotels in the county included Jamul Casino’s first hotel and the Sentral Gaslamp Quarter, which has 135 furnished apartments with hotel-style amenities, designed for short- a...