Without the boost to demand provided by school spring breaks, U.S. hotel performance growth slowed in the week of April 17. Indexed against 2019 benchmark performance, however, the number of U.S. hotel markets in peak or recovery status continued to tick up due to easy comparisons to Easter week 2019.
STR’s “Market Recovery Monitor” shows 50% of U.S. hotel markets posted revenue per available room that was 80% or higher of the level achieved in the comparable week of 2019. That percentage factors in temporarily closed markets, using STR’s total room inventory methodology, and was 46% the prior week. However, this is likely due to the easy comparison to 2019.
Of the 166 STR-defined markets, 60 posted week-over-week RevPAR gains in the week of April 17, compared to 126 markets that grew RevPAR in the previous week.
For a fifth consecutive week, more than 21 million U.S. hotel room nights were sold and more than half of all U.S. hotels posted occupancies above 60%, despite a 4% week-over-week drop in total industry demand. Occupancy for the week was 57.3% using STR’s standard methodology and 54.4% on a total-room-inventory basis.
Weekly room demand fell in most states. Florida’s hotel markets experienced an 8-point drop in occupancy for the week, which is its largest week-to-week decrease since early January. Still, Florida hotels sold 2 million room nights for the week – second among all U.S. markets, just behind Texas, where hotel occupancy was nearly flat compared to the previous week.
The only other state in which hotel room demand surpassed 2 million room nights sold was California, where hotel occupancy decreased by 5 points from the previous week.
Hotels in South Carolina, another spring break destination, experienced the largest drop in occupancy of any state for the week – down 12 points from the previous week.
The biggest hit to room demand was on weekdays, which experienced a 4-point decline in occupancy recorded on both Wednesday and Thursday, while U.S. hotels on average continued to post 70% occupancy on the weekends — 66.4% using total room inventory methodology.
Weekend occupancy has been above 70% — or 66%, according to total room inventory — in four of the past five weekends. Even in markets that posted a sharp decrease in full week occupancy, weekend occupancy held up. Overall, 44% of markets reported total room inventory occupancy above 70% this week, compared to 49% a week ago.
The percentage of hotels with occupancy below 30% also was up slightly for the week. In the week ending April 10, 2,964 participating hotels reported occupancy below 30%. This week, occupancies at 3,105 hotels dipped below that threshold. More than half of the hotels with occupancy below 30% have been in that category for the past five weeks.
After two weeks at $112, U.S. hotel average daily rate dropped to $107 this week, led by large declines in leisure destinations such as Daytona Beach and Myrtle Beach. But as with occupancy, weekend ADR held up, falling by only 1.2% week over week to $121. Weekend ADR has been above $121 for the past four weeks.
Outside the U.S., industry performance saw little change in the week. Only nine countries reported TRI weekly occupancy above 50%, including Singapore, Australia and China. On a market level, slightly more were in the Depression category — an index of 50 or below against the 2019 benchmark — this week versus the previous one.
Isaac Collazo is VP Analytics at STR.
This article represents an interpretation of data collected by CoStar's hospitality analytics firm, STR. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concerns. For more analysis of STR data, visit the data insights blog on STR.com.