Smith Travel Research this week reported final 2009 performance data for the U.S. hotel industry showing across-the-board decreases in all metrics for all major markets.
For the full year, revenue per available room was down 16.7 percent compared with 2008 and average daily rate was down 8.7 percent. While these decreases were slightly less than what the firm projected earlier in the year
(BTNonline, Nov. 24, 2009), Smith Travel Research president Mark Lomanno said the year "will go down as the worst in the modern hotel industry."
New York and Phoenix saw the largest drops in RevPAR and rate during the year. Average daily rates in New York fell 21.8 percent from 2008 levels, and RevPAR dropped 26.3 percent. Phoenix's rate and RevPAR were down 15.4 percent and 25.3 percent, respectively.
New Orleans fared the best with rates, which were down only by 4 percent for the year. The Norfolk-Virginia Beach market and Washington, D.C., had the smallest drops in RevPAR, both down 8.5 percent.
Overall occupancy for the United States fell by 8.7 percent to 55.1 percent in 2009. The largest drop was in Houston, but the comparison was skewed by higher occupancy in 2008 following Hurricane Ike. Washington, D.C., Norfolk-Virginia Beach and Oahu had the smallest year-over-year occupancy drops.