For the first time in 85 weeks, New York City’s hotels recorded the highest average weekly occupancy of all U.S. hotel markets, setting a pandemic-era record in all key performance metrics.
For the week ending Dec. 11, 81% of New York City hotels were booked at an average daily rate of $337, achieving weekly revenue per available room of $274 — all the highest levels since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020.
Weekday hotel occupancy in the market was 79%, the highest of all U.S. markets, and weekend occupancy was 89%, second only to the Bergen/Passaic, New Jersey, market. Hotels in Maui and the Florida Keys achieved higher rates.
Compared to the prior week, New York City ADR was up 11% and RevPAR was up 26%. However, rates, occupancy and RevPAR were all still below 2019 levels.
New York City hotels also led the top 25 largest U.S. hotel markets to a four-week occupancy high of 62%, adding more than a percentage point to the average. Weekday occupancy in the top 25 markets achieved an 18-week high of 59% with weekend occupancy surpassing 70%.
Total U.S. hotel industry occupancy for the week was 57% — only 5% lower than what it was in the same week of 2019. U.S. hotel occupancy has been within 5% of 2019 levels five times since the start of the pandemic, with most of those instances after Labor Day 2021.
Weekly occupancy surpassed 2019 levels in 43% of the 166 U.S. hotel markets. Most of the other markets achieved occupancy within 10% of 2019 levels for the week.
U.S. hotel industry ADR was nearly flat with the prior week, up 0.3%. But even with the limited growth, ADR was 2% higher than what it was in 2019. Weekly ADR has been above 2019 levels in 16 of the past 50 weeks, with six of those occurrences happening after Labor Day.
On an inflation-adjusted basis, ADR remained below 2019 levels and has only surpassed 2019 three times this year.
Lower weekend ADR — most of which can be attributed to Miami, which hosted the Art Basel event the prior week — dragged down the weekly percent change.
Weekday ADR advanced by nearly 3% week over week, the largest such gain in 14 weeks. Top 25 market ADR, however, declined week over week due to a sharp decrease in Miami. Excluding Miami, top 25 market ADR was up nearly 4%, driven by solid gains in San Francisco, New York and other markets.
Weekly U.S. hotel RevPAR increased 5% over the previous week, and was only 3% lower than the 2019 level. Adjusted for inflation, RevPAR was 90% of what it was in the same week of 2019, and over the past four weeks has average 93% of 2019 levels.
On a market-level, 69% of all markets posted weekly RevPAR at “peak” — higher than 2019 — and 24% of markets were in “recovery,” with RevPAR between 80% and 100% of 2019. Adjusted for inflation, 45% of markets were at “peak” and another 42% were in “recovery.”
Averaging the past 28 days, 78% of markets were at “peak.” On an inflation-adjusted basis, 55% of markets showed a 28-day RevPAR above the comparable period in 2019. Thirty-five percent were in “recovery” with most of the others in “recession” — RevPAR between 50% and 80% of 2019.
San Francisco remained in the “depression” category, with RevPAR below 50% of 2019 levels on both a nominal and inflation-adjusted basis.
Market level
Six markets — Boston; Oakland; San Jose; Washington, D.C.; Madison, Wisconsin; and San Francisco — lagged the nation with occupancy indexing below 80% of 2019 levels. On average, occupancy in these six markets was 18 percentage points lower than in 2019. Across the U.S., nearly half of reporting hotels had weekly occupancy above 60%, which was the most of the past three weeks and 2% less than in 2019.
Weekday occupancy in central business districts within the top 25 markets ranged from 77% in Miami to 30% in St. Louis. Nine of the 17 CBDs posted weekday occupancy below 50%.
In St. Louis, 47% of CBD hotels reported weekday occupancy under 30% for the week. In the same week of 2019, 9% of St. Louis’s CBD hotels had weekday occupancy under 30%.
Occupancy in the top 25 market CBDs was 72% of 2019 levels on weekdays, but jumped to 93% of 2019 levels for the weekend.
Among all top 25 markets, 57% of hotels reported weekday occupancy above 60%, compared to 68% achieving this level in 2019. Large hotels, with more than 299 rooms, in the top 25 markets had a significant pickup in the week as more than half reported weekday occupancy above 60%, the most since late July.
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.