U.S. room nights booked under corporate negotiated rates declined slightly year over year in the third quarter, while hotel bookings through global distribution systems increased more significantly, according to a new report by travel tech companies Amadeus and Cendyn.
The report, a new quarterly effort launched earlier this year by Amadeus and meetings data firm Knowland, uses proprietary bookings data from each firm to develop overall health and performance indices for the U.S. lodging industry. (Cendyn acquired Knowland last month.)
Called the Hospitality Group and Business Performance Index, the companies' third-quarter overall metric for U.S. hotels is 107.9, a measure of event and hotel booking data compared to a baseline set one year prior. That figure is the highest since the companies began releasing such data, they said.
Events in the third-quarter registered at 110.2 percent of the volume of the year-prior quarter, leading all segments except the indirect channels that book through GDSs. Room nights through the latter category increased 11 percent year over year, while the average daily rate increased 2.4 percent.
Bookings using corporate negotiated rates declined 2.2 percent year over year, according to the companies, while ADR increased 3.9 percent, for an overall index score of 101.6 percent versus the year-ago period.
Houston led all cities with an index score of 120 percent versus the third quarter of 2023, ahead of New Orleans (118 percent) and Chicago (114.8 percent). The index for each of Amadeus and Cendyn's top 25 U.S. cities increased year over year except in San Francisco, according to the companies.
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