NEW YORK CITY-The city’s hotel market has gone from strength to strength in 2011, reaching a record 90,000 hotel rooms by year’s end, a 24% increase since 2006, according to new data from the Bloomberg administration. By early 2012, more than 7,000 rooms are in the pipeline that will add to the city’s booming hotel inventory, with 40% of new openings taking place in the outer-boroughs, a sign that tourists and visitors are seeking options outside Manhattan.

“The demand has radiated out to the surrounding areas, and that’s the boroughs,” says Daniel H. Lesser, president & CEO of New York City-based LW Hospitality Advisors LLC. Lesser says much of the activity has taken place across the river in Long Island City, where 17 new hotels with 1,500 rooms total have opened. “Between office and residential developments, it is a very dynamic market that is really evolving,” he says. “Twenty years from now, it’s going to be a city-within-a-city.”

Currently, approximately 650 rooms are under construction in Long Island City alone. The neighborhood features a mix of major hotel brands, like the Four Points by Sheraton, Fairfield Inn and Holiday Inn, as well as independent boutique properties like Z NYC, the Ravel, the Queensboro Hotel and the Verve.