How Much Do Hotel Managers Make (2026 Data)

How much do hotel managers make? The typical US hotel manager earns $69,250¹ a year, about 1.36 times the median for all American workers.² Behind that one number sits a steep ladder: the hotel's general manager, the managers of its rooms and front office, and a workforce of 1,929,500³ jobs in which the largest single job, the housekeeper, earns a median of $16.79³ an hour.

The figures below cover the manager's salary from the bottom tenth to the top tenth, 23 years of pay with inflation removed, every state and the best-paying metro areas, the employers that pay most, and then every other hotel job: front desk, housekeeping, concierge, kitchen, bar, maintenance and security. A 36-year series of hotel hourly earnings, a census of hotel payrolls by state, who does these jobs, and a short comparison with hotel and restaurant pay in other countries close the picture.

Hotel manager salary: the national figures

Hotel managers in the national pay statistics are lodging managers: people who plan, direct or coordinate the activities of a lodging business or of one of its departments.¹ The group takes in hotel and resort managers, front office and front desk managers, rooms directors and night managers.⁴ In May 2025 there were 42,620¹ of them on US payrolls, and the median, the manager in the exact middle of the pay scale, earned $69,250¹. The mean is higher, $78,740¹, because the best-paid managers pull the average up; for all US jobs the mean is $69,770¹.

How much does a hotel manager make an hour?

The median hourly wage is $33.29¹; the annual figures assume 2,080 paid hours a year, a full-time schedule.⁵ The spread is wide. A manager at the 10th percentile earns $19.27¹ an hour ($40,070¹ a year), while one at the 90th percentile earns $61.96¹ ($128,880¹), 3.2 times as much.² The middle half of managers earns between $49,530¹ and $94,030¹.

Even the bottom of the manager scale sits above the typical hotel paycheck: the 10th-percentile manager's $40,070¹ is more than the $37,540³ median of all jobs in hotels. These are wages paid through payroll, including incentive pay, production bonuses and tips, but not overtime pay, holiday bonuses or other non-production bonuses.⁵ Owners who run their own hotel are not counted, so the figures describe employed managers only. Spread over the year, the median works out to about $5,771² a month or $1,332² a week before tax.

Two decades of hotel manager pay

The median hotel manager salary has risen in all but two years of the series (2012 and 2017), from $35,690⁶ in 2003 to $69,250¹ in 2025, a nominal gain of 94%.² Between 2020 and 2025 alone the median climbed from $56,670⁶ to the current level, a gain of $12,580.²

Pay after inflation

Prices rose too. Restated in 2025 dollars, the 2003 median was worth $62,446², so the real gain over 22 years is 11%, far less than the nominal 94%.² Almost all of that real gain came before 2009. In 2025 dollars the 2009 median was $69,480², slightly more than today's; real pay then fell to $64,718² in 2013 and peaked at $70,610² in 2021, when prices began to rise faster than the median. Since 2019 the real median is up only 1%, from $68,542².²

How many hotel managers there are

Payroll jobs for hotel managers grew from 30,760⁶ in 2003 to 42,620¹ in 2025, 39% more.² The pandemic cut the count by 17% in a single year, from 38,340⁶ in 2019 to 31,790⁶ in 2020, yet the median wage kept rising, from $54,430⁶ to $56,670⁶.

Where hotel managers earn the most

Hawaii pays the highest state median, $114,070⁸, followed by New Jersey, Rhode Island and Washington; Arkansas pays the lowest, $45,870⁸.⁸ The top state pays 2.5 times the bottom one.²

At the other end, the five lowest-paying states are Michigan, Oklahoma, Ohio, Missouri and Arkansas, where medians run from $58,970⁸ down to $45,870⁸. The map shows every state.

The states with the most hotel managers are not the best-paying ones.⁸ California employs the most hotel managers, 5,070⁸, then Florida with 4,790⁸ and Texas. Relative to its size, Florida has 1.76⁸ times the national concentration of these jobs, yet its median sits near the national figure.

Seven states do not have a published employment count for hotel managers (together about 5,120² jobs), so the ranking below covers only the states with published data.⁸

The best-paying metro areas

At the metro level, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue tops the list with a median of $129,230⁹, ahead of Urban Honolulu and Kahului-Wailuku on Maui. Atlantic City, Napa and Burlington in Vermont also pay six figures.⁹

Greater New York has the most hotel managers of any metro area, 1,910⁹, and pays a median of $94,030⁹.

Which employers pay hotel managers most

Most lodging managers work in hotels and motels, 36,070³ of them, at a median of $67,890³. The few who manage lodging on ships, in deep sea, coastal and Great Lakes water transportation, earn a median of $163,190³. Corporate head offices, office administrative services, colleges and gambling businesses also pay more than hotels; RV parks and campgrounds pay less.³

The hotel management ladder

Inside hotels, the lodging manager is only one rung. The table of hotel jobs also lists general and operations managers, sales managers, food service managers, chefs and the supervisors who run each department, and several of them out-earn the lodging manager.³

How much does a hotel general manager make?

There is no separate pay series for the hotel general manager title. The closest is general and operations managers employed by hotels, the executives who direct operations across several departments or locations.³ Hotels employ 23,050³ of them at a median of $81,020³, or $38.95³ an hour, 1.19 times the median lodging manager in the same industry.² The range is very wide: the bottom tenth earn $44,390³ or less and the top tenth $192,280³ or more.

How much does a hotel sales manager make?

Sales managers have the highest median among the hotel managers in the chart above: $98,850³ across 9,700³ jobs. Meeting, convention and event planners earn $63,280³.

How much do hotel chefs make?

Chefs and head cooks in hotels earn a median of $73,940³, or $35.55³ an hour, more than the lodging manager.³

Below the managers sit the supervisors who run each department day to day. In hotels, supervisors of housekeeping and janitorial workers earn a median of $45,680³, supervisors of office and administrative support workers $50,160³, supervisors of food preparation and serving workers $50,720³ and supervisors of mechanics and repairers $63,250³.³ Each of these pays more than the frontline jobs they oversee, and less than a lodging manager.

How much do hotel workers make?

Across every job in the hotel industry, from the general manager to the dishwasher, the median pay is $37,540³ a year, $18.05³ an hour.³ That is 0.74 times the median for all US jobs, $50,980¹.² Most hotel jobs cluster within a few dollars of each other: the median hourly wages of the 17 frontline occupations below run from $16.50³ to $21.30³.

Two jobs dominate the payroll. Housekeepers and desk clerks together hold 657,180² jobs, 34% of all hotel employment, and the industry median sits close to their pay.²

How much do hotel housekeepers make?

Maids and housekeeping cleaners, 415,160³ of them in hotels, earn a median of $34,920³ a year. The pay range is narrow: the 10th percentile earns $26,930³ and the 90th $49,510³.

How much do hotel housekeepers typically make an hour?

The median is $16.79³ an hour, up 50% from $11.21¹⁰ in 2018.² Housekeeping is also the most female of the hotel jobs in the workforce table below: 86.4%¹¹ of maids and housekeeping cleaners across all employers are women.

How much do hotel receptionists make?

Front desk staff are counted as hotel, motel and resort desk clerks, a group that includes front desk agents, guest service agents and reservationists.¹² Nationally 261,420¹ of them earn a median of $35,070¹ a year; inside hotels the median is $35,020³.

How much do hotel front desk clerks make an hour?

The national median is $16.86¹ an hour, with the 10th percentile at $13.04¹ and the 90th at $21.86¹. Desk clerk pay has doubled since 2003 (101%), and between 2021 and 2024 alone the median jumped 22%.² After inflation the gain since 2003 is 15%, larger than the managers' real gain of 11%.

The number of desk clerk jobs followed a different path from their pay. Employment grew in most years to 267,940⁶ in 2019, dropped to 220,380⁶ in 2021 and has not returned to the 2019 level, while the median kept rising through the whole period.¹

Hawaii again pays the most, a median of $59,110⁸ for desk clerks, followed by the District of Columbia at $47,060⁸; West Virginia pays the least, $26,830⁸.⁸ Among metro areas, Kahului-Wailuku and Urban Honolulu lead, then Burlington, San Jose and San Francisco.

Metro areas show the same order. The two Hawaii metros, Kahului-Wailuku and Urban Honolulu, pay desk clerks medians of $60,360⁹ and $59,940⁹, while Greater New York, the largest market with 8,470⁹ desk clerks, pays $43,490⁹.

How much does a hotel concierge make?

Concierges in hotels earn a median of $42,310³, or $20.34³ an hour. Their numbers have shrunk: hotels employed 13,010¹⁰ concierges in 2019 and 6,620³ in 2025.

How much does a hotel doorman make?

Doormen are counted with baggage porters and bellhops.¹³ Hotels employ 16,580³ of them at a median of $17.51³ an hour, $36,410³ a year, with tips counted as part of the wage.⁵

Frontline hotel wages rose faster after 2019 than before. Inside hotels, the housekeeper median gained $2.57 an hour from 2012 to 2019 and $5.08 from 2019 to 2025, and the median for concierges went from $15.02¹⁰ in 2018 to $20.34³.² Desk clerks and bellhops followed the same path.

Desk clerks inside hotels moved almost in step with housekeepers, from $11.37¹⁰ an hour in 2018 to $16.84³ in 2025.¹⁰

Bellhops and doormen started from a slightly higher base, $11.73¹⁰ an hour in 2018, and reached $17.51³.¹⁰

Concierges started from the highest base of the four jobs and gained $5.32² an hour since 2018, while their number in hotels fell by about half.²

How much do hotel restaurant servers make?

Waiters and waitresses in hotels earn a median of $17.07³ an hour, but the top of their range is high: the 90th percentile earns $78,450³ a year, more than twice the median of $35,510³; tips count as wages in these figures.⁵

How much do hotel bartenders make?

Hotel bartenders show the same pattern: a median of $17.55³ an hour and a 90th percentile of $78,930³ a year.

How much do hotel cooks make?

Restaurant cooks in hotels earn a median of $21.30³ an hour, $44,290³ a year, the highest median of the frontline jobs in the chart above.

The pandemic reshaped the hotel workforce. Hotel jobs fell 33% between 2019 and 2021, from 2,053,410¹⁰ to 1,374,810¹⁰, and by 2025 they were still 6% below 2019.² Concierges, bellhops and waiters lost more than half their hotel jobs between 2019 and 2021, while the number of general and operations managers in hotels grew.

How much do hotel maintenance workers make?

General maintenance and repair workers, 87,660³ of them in hotels, earn a median of $20.30³ an hour, $42,220³ a year.

How much does a hotel security guard make?

Security guards in hotels earn a median of $18.95³ an hour, $39,420³ a year.

How much do hotel reservation agents make?

Reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks employed by hotels earn a median of $20.40³ an hour, $42,420³ a year.³

Hotel pay over time

How much does a hotel pay per hour?

A second, longer series covers the hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees in hotels and motels (casino hotels excluded), the workers below management level. They averaged $21.27¹⁴ an hour in 2025, against $6.73¹⁴ in 1990.¹⁴ This is an average, not a median.

In 2025 dollars, the 1990 rate was worth $16.58², so real hourly pay is up 28% in 35 years, and 10% since 2019.² Real pay hovered between $16.15² and $17.24² through the 1990s, rose to $19.88² in 2009, slipped back to $17.81² by 2012 and jumped to $20.73² in 2021.

Hours matter as much as rates. Hotel workers below management average about 29.6¹⁴ paid hours a week, well short of full time, so their average weekly earnings in 2025 were $630.58¹⁴ before tax.¹⁴ Hours have barely moved since 1990, apart from the 2020 dip to 26.7¹⁴.

A third measure divides each hotel's total payroll by its jobs. In hotels and motels (casino hotels excluded), average pay per job was $44,552¹⁵ in 2025, up 60% from $27,810¹⁵ in 2014.² This count covers 1,548,238¹⁵ jobs at 61,618¹⁵ establishments, and it includes part-time jobs, which pulls the average down.

The same count shows the industry has not fully rebuilt its workforce. Hotels and motels had 1,659,783¹⁵ jobs in 2019 and 1,548,238¹⁵ in 2025, even though the number of establishments grew from 57,327¹⁵ to 61,618¹⁵. Fewer workers per property and higher pay per job arrived together.

Hotel pay by state

The payroll census gives hotel pay for every state that publishes it. The average hotel wage in Hawaii was $69,244¹⁵ per job in 2025, the highest of any state, ahead of New York and Massachusetts; Mississippi was lowest at $22,715¹⁵, so the top state pays 3.0 times the bottom one.²

The two largest hotel states by jobs rank fourth and sixth for pay.¹⁵ California's 203,993¹⁵ hotel and motel jobs average $52,825¹⁵ a year, and Florida's 191,970¹⁵ jobs average $48,459¹⁵. Nevada, whose casino hotels fall outside this count, averages $47,226¹⁵ for its 15,122¹⁵ non-casino hotel jobs.¹⁵

The state pattern for hotel managers and for all hotel jobs lines up: Hawaii tops both lists, and Massachusetts, Washington and Colorado are in the top ten of both.⁸ The premium of a high-paying state shows up for managers, desk clerks and the average hotel job alike.¹⁵

Who works in hotel jobs

The workforce behind these numbers is mostly female in housekeeping and at the front desk. Women hold 75.8%¹¹ of desk clerk jobs and 52.5%¹¹ of lodging manager jobs, against 47.1%¹¹ of all jobs. Hispanic or Latino workers make up 49.8%¹¹ of maids and housekeeping cleaners.

The household count behind this table puts about 117,000¹¹ people in lodging manager jobs in 2025, of whom 78,000¹⁶ were full-time wage and salary workers. Payroll records count 42,620¹ lodging manager jobs; the two figures differ because a household survey records the occupation people report for themselves, while employers report jobs by detailed occupation codes, so the counts are not directly comparable.¹¹ Baggage porters, bellhops and concierges, together with chefs and head cooks (26.4%¹¹ women), are the exceptions to the female majority in the table: women hold only 19.8%¹¹ of porter, bellhop and concierge jobs.

Measured by weekly pay for full-time work, lodging managers earn a median of $1,270¹⁶ a week, 1.05 times the median for all full-time workers.² Among full-time maids and housekeeping cleaners, men earn $789¹⁶ a week and women $671¹⁶, a gap of $118 a week.²

Hotel pay next to other travel industries

Among the industries that serve travelers, hotels sit in the middle for pay. The median job in Traveler Accommodation pays $18.05³ an hour, close to RV parks and amusement parks, a little above restaurants at $16.67³, and about half the $35.22³ of scheduled airlines.³

Within travel, the better-paid industries are the ones built on scheduled transport and booking. Travel arrangement and reservation services pay a median of $27.80³ an hour and gambling $18.72³, while drinking places pay $16.92³.³ Hotels, with their large housekeeping and front desk staffs, land in the middle of the leisure group.

Hotel and restaurant pay around the world

Hotel pay by country is published only for the wider accommodation and food service sector, hotels and restaurants together. On that basis, US employees in the sector averaged $2,909¹⁷ a month in 2025, 46% of the US all-sector average.² Switzerland, Norway, France and Ireland average more; Mexico, the Dominican Republic, India and Egypt average a small fraction of the US figure once converted to dollars at market exchange rates.¹⁷

What hotel pay means for workers and guests

For a manager, the career math is favorable but location-bound. A hotel manager at the national median earns $69,250¹, but the same title pays $114,070⁸ in Hawaii and $45,870⁸ in Arkansas; inside hotels, the step up to general and operations manager raises the median to $81,020³.³

For frontline staff, the hourly rate is only half the story. With about 29.6¹⁴ hours a week, a hotel worker on the average hourly rate earns less than a 40-hour salary would suggest, and the jobs that rely on tips, servers and bartenders, show a wide gap between the middle and the top earners.³

For job seekers, the ladder inside a hotel is short in dollars at the bottom and long at the top. A housekeeper at the hotel median of $16.79³ an hour and a desk clerk at $16.84³ earn almost the same; a step to a supervisor's job, and then to lodging manager, is where pay pulls away.³

For guests, the people who clean the room and check them in are the core of the payroll: housekeepers and desk clerks alone are 34% of hotel jobs.²

Conclusions

1. A hotel manager earns well above the typical US wage, but slightly less than in 2009 after inflation. The median is $69,250, 1.36 times the all-worker median; in real terms it is 11% above 2003 but below the $69,480 of 2009, and only 1% above 2019.
2. The frontline gained more than management. Desk clerk pay rose 15% in real terms since 2003, and real hourly earnings of hotel workers below management rose 10% from 2019 to 2025 alone.
3. The title matters as much as the hotel. Inside hotels, general and operations managers earn $81,020 and sales managers $98,850, both above the $67,890 of lodging managers.
4. Geography sets the floor and the ceiling. Hawaii leads for managers, desk clerks and average pay per hotel job; the top state pays 2.5 times the bottom one for managers.
5. Two jobs set the level of hotel pay. Housekeepers and desk clerks hold 34% of hotel jobs, and the industry median, $37,540, sits close to their pay even as managers earn nearly twice that.