Excerpt from CoStar
Key metrics for U.S. hotel performance were down slightly in the latest weekly data from STR, and history suggests that the peak of the fall travel season has come and gone.
For the week ending Oct. 22, U.S. hotel occupancy was down 0.4 percentage points from the previous week to 69.9%. Occupancy for the past two weeks, however, has averaged 70.1%, surpassing 70% for only the seventh time in the past 23 years over this two-week period.
Average daily rate was also down 0.1% week over week to $157 but was 17% higher than the same week of 2019. When adjusted for inflation, ADR still surpassed 2019 by 1.1%. Revenue per available room decreased 0.7% week over week to $110 and was just slightly better than in 2019 when adjusted for inflation.
Room demand — the number of hotel room nights sold — in the current week and next is expected to fall more significantly as families stay home for Halloween, which is on a Monday this year. In past years with the same day-of-week composition, room demand fell by about 5% in the week of Halloween.
The slowdown in hotel performance is normal for this time of year. For the week ending Oct. 22, demand was down 142,000 room nights from the previous week. Over the same period of 2019, demand was down 755,000 room nights. Available rooms are up 887,000 from 2019, and the U.S. hotel industry sold 370,000 more rooms over this two-week period than it did in 2019, when occupancy was 1.1 percentage points higher.
Weekend occupancy slid for a second week, down 1.2 percentage points week over week to 77.8%. Compared to 2019, occupancy over the weekend was nearly three percentage points higher.
Demand for hotel rooms from groups was the second strongest since the start of the pandemic, helping to drive a week-over-week improvement in weekday hotel occupancy.
Monday to Wednesday occupancy across the U.S. increased in the week to 69.4%, up from 67.9% in the prior week. This was the highest weekday occupancy since late July.
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