Growing Leisure and Business Travel Boosts Hospitality Recovery, Data Reveals
Originally published on May 23, 2022, by STR.
For the four-week period ending 14 May 2022, more than three-quarters of all U.S. hotel markets outperformed their comparable 2019 revenue per available room (RevPAR) on a nominal basis. Of 165 STR-defined U.S. markets, only 38 fell short of their 2019 RevPAR, which was a solid improvement from 52 underperformers in April’s “bubble” blog update. Industry RevPAR looks to be on a steady footing; however, a look at RevPAR contribution shows a greater influence from average daily rate (ADR) as opposed to occupancy in many areas.
As a result, we decided to focus on occupancy for performance leader callouts in this update.
As detailed in other STR resources, including our weekly Market Recover Monitor (MRM), ADR gains have been spurred both by higher leisure demand and inflationary pressures. As a result, only eight markets averaged lower nominal (non-inflation adjusted) ADR from 2019 levels in recent weeks.
Occupancy, on the other hand, accounts for the bulk of the current recovery’s performance deficits. Outside of leisure-oriented destinations, occupancy levels have mostly fallen short of 2019 levels with the steepest deficits in larger, traditionally business-oriented markets. To add further context, only 59 STR-defined markets (representing 31% of total U.S. rooms) met or surpassed their date-matched occupancy levels for the most recent four weeks.