Nearly half of all U.S. hotel markets performed at “recovery” or “peak” levels during the week of April 10, according to the latest “Market Recovery Monitor” report from STR, CoStar’s hospitality analytics firm.

The weekly STR report places U.S. hotel markets in one of four categories, based on performance indexed to the comparable week in 2019.

For the week of April 10, 48% of the 166 STR-defined U.S. markets achieved a revenue per available room index of between 80 and 99.9 (recovery) or an index of 100 or higher (peak). Accounting for temporarily closed hotels, using STR’s total room inventory methodology, 46% of U.S. markets posted recovery or peak performance for the week. In the U.S., 580 hotels with 154,000 rooms are still temporarily closed.

Both calculations mark the highest percentage of hotels in the recovery or peak categories since the start of the pandemic.

Also accounting for temporarily closed hotels, 18 U.S. markets performed at the depression level — an index of 50 or below against the 2019 benchmark — for the week, down from 55 markets at that level at the end of 2020. Those markets in the depression category include San Francisco, New York, Boston and Washington, D.C., in the U.S. top 25.

Outside the U.S., the recovery has yet to take hold as 69% of the 349 STR-defined global markets — excluding the U.S. — remain in the depression category, which are heavily impacted by hotels that remain temporarily closed due to the pandemic and restrictions on travel in international markets. Bright spots include markets in the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Qatar that posted hotel occupancy above 60% for the week of April 10.

U.S. hotel demand for the week of April 10 reached its highest level since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 — with 22 million room nights sold.

As a result, U.S. hotel occupancy reached 59.7%, also the highest level of the past year. On average, the industry sold 3.2 million rooms per day during the week. A year ago, daily demand was a third of that.

All but 37 U.S. markets reported growth in room demand week over week, led by Texas, where all markets except McAllen/Brownsville reported higher room demand. Beach resort destinations in South Carolina and North Carolina were also in high demand — with Myrtle Beach posting the greatest demand growth of any U.S. market for the week.

By state, Florida posted the highest hotel occupancy for the week at 77.9%. Factoring in temporarily closed hotels, the occupancy for the state was 73.2% — second-highest behind South Carolina, which has very few temporarily closed hotels. Even considering temporary closures, most Florida markets posted weekly occupancy higher than the levels for the same week in 2019. In Orlando, hotel occupancy was 73% of the level achieved in the same week in 2019.

More than half (55%) of U.S. hotels posted weekly occupancy above 60%, the most in more than a year. More importantly, only 8% of open hotels posted occupancy below 30% for the week.

Weekly average daily rate slipped a bit but remained above $112 for a second straight week. The slowing in ADR was mostly from hotels in the Top 25 markets, as rate was flat in all other markets combined. The decline in ADR was most pronounced in the luxury and upper-upscale classes.

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.