Top Metros for Lodging Managers: New York Leads Overall as Seattle and Honolulu Offer the Highest Pay

For lodging managers, LaborCove data shows a national median salary of $69,250 and employment of 42,620 positions, with projected national employment growth of 3.4%. Within that national context, the top 10 metros for lodging managers display substantial variation in median pay, employment counts, and Geography Scores. New York-Newark-Jersey City ranks #1 with the highest LaborCove Geography Score among the supplied metros and the largest employment count in the group at 1,910 jobs, while its median salary of $94,030 sits above the national median. By contrast, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue ranks #2 with a lower Geography Score than New York but a higher median salary of $129,230 and a smaller employment count of 220. Boston-Cambridge-Newton ranks #3 with a Geography Score below Seattle’s and a median salary of $97,860, but its employment count is not supplied, limiting direct volume comparisons. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim at #4 and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at #10 both show employment in the low thousands—1,480 and 1,140 respectively—with median salaries that differ by nearly $10,000. Several metros in the top 10 list have median salaries above both the national figure and New York’s. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Urban Honolulu, and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara all post six-figure or near six-figure medians, while ranking below New York on the Geography Score. This illustrates that a higher salary does not automatically produce the top overall ranking in LaborCove’s methodology. Together, these results suggest that lodging managers weighing relocation or regional focus face distinct trade-offs between higher median pay, larger employment counts, and Geography Scores. LaborCove’s rankings organize those trade-offs numerically, but each professional still needs to align the data with personal career and location priorities.

At the national level, lodging managers have a median annual salary of $69,250 and total employment of 42,620 positions in the supplied data. National employment for this occupation is projected to grow by 3.4%, which provides broad U.S. context but does not indicate how any individual metro will change. Within that national backdrop, several of the top 10 metros report median salaries above the national figure. New York-Newark-Jersey City, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Urban Honolulu, and Denver-Aurora-Centennial all have median pay figures exceeding $69,250. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is the only metro in the top 10 with a median salary of $66,280, which is below the national median. This pattern means that, among LaborCove’s top 10 metros, most of the supplied local medians are above the national level, even though they differ substantially from one another.

New York-Newark-Jersey City holds the #1 position in LaborCove’s metro rankings for lodging managers, with a Geography Score of 73.69. That score is higher than the scores reported for all other metros in the top 10 list. New York’s median salary of $94,030 is also higher than the national median of $69,250. On employment, New York-Newark-Jersey City has 1,910 lodging manager positions, the largest count reported among the listed metros. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim has the second-highest supplied employment in this group at 1,480, while Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington follow with 1,160 and 1,140 respectively. These numbers show that New York combines a Geography Score that leads the ranking with the largest employment tally in the top 10, paired with a median salary that is notably higher than the national benchmark.

Several metros in the top 10 have higher median salaries than New York-Newark-Jersey City but rank below it in LaborCove’s scoring. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue has the highest supplied median salary at $129,230, which is greater than New York’s $94,030, yet it ranks #2 with a Geography Score of 57.39. Urban Honolulu reports a median salary of $115,190, also above New York’s level, and stands at rank #8 with a Geography Score of 45.85. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara has a median salary of $94,460, which is slightly higher than New York’s $94,030, but San Jose ranks #7 with a Geography Score of 46.98. Boston-Cambridge-Newton’s median salary of $97,860 exceeds both New York’s median and the national median, while Boston holds the #3 rank with a Geography Score of 56.77. These comparisons underline that higher local pay alone does not determine the overall LaborCove Geography Score or rank. Instead, metros with very strong salaries can appear in lower positions than New York, indicating that the ranking reflects a broader underlying methodology beyond a single metric.

Mid-ranked metros in the top 10 show different balances between pay and employment. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim ranks #4 with a Geography Score of 56.14, a median salary of $75,930, and employment of 1,480. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont at #5 has a lower Geography Score of 50.12 and a median salary of $89,010, along with 660 reported lodging manager jobs. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach holds the #6 position with a Geography Score of 47.91, median salary of $76,860, and employment of 1,160. Denver-Aurora-Centennial ranks #9 with a Geography Score of 45.71, a median salary of $96,470, and 390 lodging manager positions. Comparing these metros shows that neither higher employment nor higher salary automatically results in a higher Geography Score. Los Angeles has more reported jobs than San Francisco but a lower median salary; Denver has a higher median salary than Miami yet ranks below it in LaborCove’s list.

Some of the highest-paying metros in the top 10 have comparatively smaller supplied employment counts. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, with the top median salary of $129,230, has 220 lodging manager positions in the data. Urban Honolulu, with a median salary of $115,190, reports 70 positions—the smallest employment count listed among these metros. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara combines a median salary of $94,460 with 190 reported jobs, compared with New York-Newark-Jersey City’s 1,910 positions and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim’s 1,480. Denver-Aurora-Centennial’s median salary of $96,470 is higher than New York’s $94,030, but Denver has 390 positions versus New York’s 1,910. These contrasts demonstrate that lodging managers considering these metros may see high median salaries in some locations associated with smaller reported employment counts, while other areas in the top 10 pair mid-to-high salaries with substantially larger reported job totals.

LaborCove compiles this analysis using authoritative U.S. labor-market data for lodging managers (occupation 11-9081) and its own Geography Score methodology. The national figures and metro-level observations in this article are based on Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) data with a reference period of May 2025. The national projected employment growth rate of 3.4% reflects a separate forward-looking occupational projection for the U.S. as a whole, not metro-level forecasts. Each metro in the top 10 list is assigned a LaborCove Geography Score and rank, alongside the supplied median annual salary and employment count where available. Geography Scores summarize how each area performs in LaborCove’s framework, but the internal weighting of specific inputs is not detailed in this article. Because Boston-Cambridge-Newton has no employment value supplied, it cannot be compared to other metros on that metric. These rankings are one decision input for lodging managers considering where to focus their careers. They should be evaluated together with personal constraints and preferences such as family situation or non-work priorities, which are outside the scope of LaborCove’s quantitative data.