The second quarter of 2025 proved shaky for many business travel suppliers, with its final month beset by what hotel analytics firm STR bluntly called the "weak state" of business travel.
In noting persistent year-over-year declines in weekly U.S. revenue per available room in the Monday-through-Wednesday timeframe throughout June and early July, STR said that "in simple terms, weekdays and the weekend serve as a proxy for business and leisure travel trends, respectively, Since Memorial Day, with one exception, weekdays have consistently underperformed relative to weekends, indicating a continued weak business travel environment."
On the whole, U.S. hotel occupancy in June declined 1.7 percent year over year, according to STR, while the U.S. average daily hotel rate increased 0.4 percent and U.S. RevPAR decreased 1.2 percent.
Other measures of June business travel demand, however, were somewhat less dire. The number of air tickets sold in June by U.S. corporate travel agencies and settled by ARC declined year over year for the sixth consecutive month, but the rate of such decline was notable lower than it was in April and May. Noting overall first-half U.S. air sales declined year over year, ARC in a statement suggested "a rapidly changing economic environment" challenged total demand.
Total June U.S. domestic air passenger travel demand, as measured in revenue passenger kilometers, increased 0.1 percent year over year, according to the International Air Transport Association, the first such monthly increase since January but lower than any of the large individual countries for which IATA provides such data.
Overall June domestic air passenger travel demand increased 1.6 percent year over year while international travel demand increased 3.2 percent, according to IATA. The overall 2.6 percent demand increase for all air passenger travel was the lowest such increase since March, for which IATA cited conflict in the Middle East as a key reason; several carriers canceled flights in June following Israeli airstrikes on Iran.
