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A new report from The Highland Group shows that in April 2021, extended-stay hotels’ revenue per available room reached 90% of its nominal value in April 2019. Combined with economy extended-stay hotels’ monthly RevPAR being 13% higher than two years ago and gains in mid-price and upscale segment RevPAR recovery indices, the company found the RevPAR recovery is about twice as fast compared to the previous two downturns.

Extended-stay hotels’ occupancy returned to April 2019 levels in April 2021 as well when it took about four years for occupancy to return to previous highs following the last two downturns, the report states. Extended-stay hotels’ occupancy premium over all hotels has declined from its peak in 2020, but the segment continues to run above the long-term average.

The heat wave in the Pacific Northwest has broken temperature records, hitting 115 degrees in Portland, Oregon, when the average temperature for this time of year is about 73 degrees, The New York Times reports. The National Weather Service has issued excessive-heat warnings for parts of Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho and Nevada.

Because Seattle has such a temperate climate, many residents in the area do not have air conditioners, leading many to turn to hotels to beat the heat. However, hotel prices have surged due to the high demand, Q13 Fox reports. People have turned to social media to point out hotels with higher-than-normal rates, some as high as almost $1,000 a night, and are asking for the Washington attorney general office to investigate.

U.S. hoteliers are expecting travelers will extend their stays for the long July Fourth holiday weekend, reports HNN’s Dana Miller. AAA Travel projected more than 47.7 million people will travel by road and are between July 1 and July 5, the second-highest amount of Independence Day travel volume behind 2019’s record high.

Lauren Goodman, general manager of The Monsaraz San Diego, part of Hilton's Tapestry Collection, said in an email interview that she believes guests will extend their stays for the long weekend. The booking window is still short, but there has been an increase in leads for social events.

"There's a renewed sense of optimism of group and corporate returning sooner, with people feeling more comfortable with travel and being out and about again,” she said. “We are expecting San Diego to sell out for the holiday weekend, with Saturday night being the strongest occupancy of the weekend."

In a sign of the company’s confidence in the return of travel, United Airlines has placed an order for 200 Boeing 737 Max jets and 70 Airbus SE A321neos, The Wall Street Journal reports. The deal is valued at more than $30 billion in list prices before discounts.

“Everything we see every week makes us even more certain that business travel and international travel are ultimately going to come back,” said United CEO Scott Kirby. “Some of them will be different, but they are ultimately going to come back at 100%.”

Thanks to federal stimulus funding and savings built up during the coronavirus pandemic, American consumers are spending so much on goods that the U.S. economy is “playing the role China played in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

On its own, the most recent U.S. spending program is expected to increase output in Japan, China and the Eurozone by up to 0.5 percentage points over the next year, the article states. That amount could reach up to 1 percentage point in Mexico and Canada. In May, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development raised its global economic growth forecast for this year to 5.8%, the fastest since 1973.

“These are enormous numbers. U.S. fiscal policy is on a scale we’ve not seen before in peacetime,” said Adam Posen, a former Bank of England policy maker, adding that Japan and Europe could probably grow about 1% a year or less over time. “There is going to be an extent to which Europe, China and Japan are free-riding on U.S. fiscal largess.”