December 2014 was another record-breaking month for the United States hotel industry. Here are five things you need to know about the data from STR, parent company of Hotel News Now.
1. December occupancy broke a record
Occupancy clocked in at 52.6% for the overall U.S. hotel industry—the highest such mark ever recorded in December.
Even though occupancies increased across the board, the lower end of the spectrum still left half their rooms empty. Here are the occupancy rates by chain scale:
| Occupancy | |
| Luxury | 66.8% |
| Upper upscale | 60.7% |
| Upscale | 61.3% |
| Upper midscale | 52.7% |
| Midscale | 46.3% |
| Economy | 47.4% |
| Independents | 49.3% |
2. RevPAR grew …
Revenue per available room increased 9.3%, which is the second highest December RevPAR growth STR ever has recorded. This brings us to 58 months of positive RevPAR growth. This run is now longer than the positive RevPAR increase between July 2003 and February 2008 (56 months).
3. … so did ADR
Add to that an average-daily-rate increase of 4.3%. ADR of $113.42 was, of course, the highest ever for the month of December.
4. Room demand saw an uptick, too
Room demand during the month grew 5.8%, which was the second highest growth rate this year and well above the annual total of 4.5%.
Group demand was, as expected, the slowest of any month in 2014 but higher than in the past three years.
| Date | Group Rooms Sold (mm) |
| Dec 11 | 3.6 |
| Dec 12 | 3.7 |
| Dec 13 | 3.8 |
| Dec 14 | 4.0 |
At the same time, transient room demand for the month was fairly strong and has been growing steadily over the most recent past, probably an indicator of an improving U.S. economy that allows more people to go on winter vacations.
| Date | Transient Rooms Sold (mm) |
| Dec 11 | 11.4 |
| Dec 12 | 12.1 |
| Dec 13 | 12.4 |
| Dec 14 | 13.0 |
5. Millions of more rooms were sold
Overall, some 4.4 million additional rooms were sold when compared to December 2013. This increase is slightly higher than the average monthly tally of 4.1 million roomnights sold (when dividing the annual 49.7 million new rooms sold by 12 months).
Additionally, the number of rooms under construction stands at 120,000 rooms, up 31% from the prior year’s December.
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