The three key U.S. hotel performance indicators for the week ending April 11 dropped at even steeper year-over-year rates than in recent weeks, according to STR.
Compared with the week ending April 13, 2019, STR reported occupancy down 69.8 percent to 21 percent, average daily rate down 45.6 percent to $74.18, and revenue per available room down 83.6 percent to $15.61.
"As we've noted, RevPAR declines of this severity are our temporary new normal," said STR SVP of lodging insights Jan Freitag. "Several weeks of data also point to occupancy in the 20 percent range to be the low point, and economy hotels holding at a higher occupancy level is the pattern right now."
In an April 9 STR webinar, Freitag reported for week ending April 4, the lowest levels occupancy by class were in higher end of the market, with luxury and upper-upscale posting such rates of 9.1 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively. The absolute numbers increased going down the class scale, with economy posting occupancy of 34.8 percent.
The company also has calculated that approximately 665,000 hotel rooms out of 5.4 million in the U.S. were closed, representing 12 percent of inventory. About 7.9 million hotel rooms were sold during the week ending April 4, meaning a little more than 1 million hotel rooms per day still were being occupied. That number a month prior, for the week ending March 7, was 23.1 million.
In the top 25 markets for the week ending April 11, Oahu Island reported the steepest year-over-year decrease in occupancy (down 90.9 percent) and the only single-digit occupancy level (7.1 percent). It also experienced the steeped decline in RevPAR (down 94 percent to $10.26). San Francisco, San Mateo reported the biggest decrease in ADR (down 62.5 percent to $107.42).
The absolute levels of occupancy for New York and Seattle were better this past week (24.8 percent and 20.2 percent, respectively) than in the week ending April 4, likely attributable to an influx of medical and first responders requiring lodging in those cities.
For group occupancy, New York reported the highest absolute occupancy level of 9.7 percent, a 30.2 percent decline from the year prior, compared with most other markets showing declines of more than 90 percent for the period. New York group occupancy for the week ending April 13, 2019, was just 14.3 percent, explaining the difference.
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