The 12 months ending in April mark the first time since early 2011 that the 12-month rolling average for U.S. hotel average daily rate growth dropped below 2 percent, hitting 1.9 percent, said STR SVP of lodging insights Jan Freitag. STR also is watching the U.S. hotel development pipeline and the increase in construction activity. "Supply growth has already impacted performance in many major markets, especially in the limited- and select-service segments, and we do not anticipate this trend to change," he said.
Despite the 12-month performance, April occupancy rose 0.3 percent year over year to 68 percent, ADR increased 0.9 percent to $131.85 and revenue per available room grew 1.2 percent to $89.67. "Considering that the Easter calendar shift pulled group occupancy down 6.3 percent, any increase in nationwide RevPAR would have been considered respectable, so it's fair to say that the 1.2 percent increase was a pleasant surprise," Freitag said. The industry has now posted year-over-year RevPAR growth for 109 of the past 110 months.
Among the 25 markets with the most rooms, Minneapolis/St. Paul reported the greatest year-over-year bump in RevPAR, 17.1 percent to $91.67, driven by the largest increase in ADR, 15.1 percent to $134.86. Los Angeles/Long Beach reported the highest rise in occupancy, 3.2 percent to 81.8 percent.
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