After flattening out in recent months, occupancy at U.S.
hotels increased 2.2 percent year over year during April to 68.1 percent,
according to STR.
Senior vice president of lodging insights Jan Freitag said
the positive results reflected Easter's shift from April in 2015 to March in
2016. "Yes, all of this is a reverse Easter comp," he said. "Group
occupancy, which was down 9.6 percent last month, was up 10.8 percent for the
upper-end hotels. The meeting planners clearly did not stop booking; they
simply just shifted the pattern from March to April."
Average daily rate at U.S. hotels also increased, up 2.8
percent year over year to $123.14. Still, Freitag doubts April marks any kind
of reversal of the weak performance hotels have seen so far in 2016. "What
strikes me is the lack of pricing power despite a demand push of 3.7 percent, the
highest since September," he said.
Among the top 25 markets, Dallas saw the largest rise in
occupancy, 11 percent to 80.9 percent. Houston experienced the largest drop in
occupancy, 4.8 percent to 67.5 percent. Los Angeles/Long Beach posted the
largest increase in ADR, 11.6 percent to $173.50, while the Miami/Hialeah
market reported a 6 percent decline to $201.32.
The United States as a whole outperformed the
top 25 U.S. markets in year-over-year growth in revenue per available room. For
the top 25, RevPAR increased 3.8 percent, while in all other markets it grew
5.8 percent. Freitag attributed the difference to supply growth in the large
U.S. markets.