The hosts of Tell Me More: A Hospitality Data Podcast, tried to get through their latest episode without saying the "U" word — uncertainty.
It was a tall order, since so many factors influencing global travel trends, hotel performance and consumer confidence are up in the air, but analysts Jan Freitag from CoStar Group and Isaac Collazo from STR met the challenge.
To give listeners some measure of clarity amid uncertainty, Collazo, STR's senior director of analytics, warned against recency bias.
"I caution everyone, don't get recency bias just because of what you read or see or hear, and change your forecast," he said. "You have to have a strategy. You have to maintain what you're trying to do, but you have got to be careful and not overreact."
Freitag, CoStar's national director of hospitality analytics, agreed and gave some advice:
"Take a little sticky note, and put on it 'recency bias' and put it on your laptop," he told listeners. "I think in this environment, (those are) words to live by."
First-quarter U.S. revenue per available room growth was 2.2%, mostly driven by January and February performance, and characterized by a lot of calendar shifts, including the Easter holiday and spring break. January's inauguration lift to Washington, D.C., and February's Super Bowl in New Orleans created other ups and downs for performance and comparisons to 2024.
But all in all, hotel performance data from March and the full first quarter is "not all gloom and doom at this point," Collazo said.
Core U.S. markets that aren't currently affected by event shifts and weather-related shifts had collective RevPAR growth that was very close to the overall U.S., he said, pointing out a lot of strong performance in the Northeast and Midwest.
Also in this episode
- Freitag unpacks first-quarter results from major airline companies, showing that while demand for premium cabin seating remains strong, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines are worried about main-cabin demand slowdowns in the second quarter.
- Bifurcation in consumer confidence persists, Collazo said, but he cautioned listeners to get confidence by looking at broader trends instead of simply year-over-year numbers.
- Both share some insight into the debates and issues that form the CoStar and Tourism Economics revised forecast, which will come out in June.