US hotel sector beats weekly pre-COVID numbers

Hotel operators in the US, devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, finally have something to celebrate as weekly revenue per available room recently beat the comparable totals from 2019, before the public health crisis began.

The numbers

• Data from insights company STR indicated that revenue per available room, a core metric for the hotel sector, rose by 5.7% from June 27th to July 3rd, building up to Independence Day on July 4th, when measured against the same period in 2019.
• STR also noted, however, that July 4th fell on a Thursday in 2019, leading to lower demand than many other years.
• The luxury end of the market showed the biggest leap in daily room rates, with an increase of almost 23% this year versus the same week in 2019.
• Average hotel occupancy across the US fell in the same week to a little over 65%.

Go deeper

• Leisure travel accounts for the vast majority of all travel taking place in the US at present; cities and sectors reliant on business travel, therefore, have less to celebrate.
• Again, there may be room for optimism about the near future as signs emerge of a corporate travel sector revival. Once government-enforced travel restrictions are removed, hotels, airlines and travel companies are all reporting strong demand from executives.
• In the US, an opening up is gathering pace, with Las Vegas hosting the “World of Concrete” event last month, its first major convention since the start of the pandemic.

Sourced from Skift, Financial Times