Although it suffered a small decline in January, the U.S. hotel industry enjoyed a slight recovery in February, according to economic research firm e-forecasting.com, which released the results of its latest Hotel Industry Pulse (HIP) index this week in partnership with Smith Travel Research.After declining 0.5 percent in January, HIP improved 1.3 percent in February, reaching 82.5 out of 100, according to e-forecasting.com."This report really takes the same cue as the last few months, and recovery will be a bumpy ride," said e-forecasting.com CEO Maria Simos. "One month of decline, as we saw last month, should not become too worrisome as there tends to be this back and forth while the industry finds its way out of recession."HIP's six-month growth rate reached 0.8 percent last month, climbing from negative 3 percent in January; during the worst of the hotel industry recession in March 2009, the six-month growth rate dropped to negative 23.4."Looking at the six-month growth rate, we see the industry is in fact pulling through, but this by no means is a guarantee that it will be smooth sailing from here on out," Simos continued. "Taking a cue from the Hotel Industry Leading Indicator, which typically leads activity in the hotel industry by about five to six months, we do expect to see a leveling in HIP growth after the summer."