The most recent weekly report for the three key performance indicators for the U.S. hotel industry remains negative, according to STR, but the level of year-over-year declines appear less steep when compared with results in recent weeks. One reason could be the comparison with the timing of Passover during the week ending April 27, 2019, which this week's results are measured against.
For the week ending April 25, year-over-year occupancy fell 62.2 percent to 26 percent, average daily rate declined 42.9 percent to $73.61, and revenue per available room dropped 78.4 percent to $19.13. Absolute occupancy rose slightly from the levels reported the prior two weeks, which were 23.4 percent and 21 percent respectively. The RevPAR decline also was less sharp than last week, when it was 79.4 percent, and lower than the record-setting declines posted in late March and early April.
"Demand has grown slightly across the country during the last two weeks, which could provide some hope that the levels seen in early April were indeed the bottom—especially with some states now moving to ease social distancing guidance," said STR SVP of lodging insights Jan Freitag. "The 1.4 million additional room nights sold the last two weeks only represent around 100,000 new rooms occupied per night, but gains even that small are certainly better than further declines."
Hotels in California, Texas, New York, Florida and Georgia represent about 40 percent of that demand gain from two weeks ago, Freitag continued. "The list of hotel demand generators is long, but in general, it is not unreasonable to assume that part of the increased business is coming from essential workers, homeless housing initiatives and government-contracted guests."
Aggregate data for the top 25 markets continued to show steeper declines than the national averages. Among those markets, Oahu reported the largest drop in occupancy, at 87.5 percent, and the only single-digit absolute occupancy level, at 9.8 percent. It also reported the steepest decline in RevPAR, at 92.1 percent. New York's absolute occupancy was 41 percent, compared with 33.3 percent for the prior week.
While most of the top 25 meetings markets continue to report group year-over-year occupancy declines of between 90 percent to 100 percent, a few cities showed less steep fall off. Chicago group occupancy was at 4.8 percent for the week and declined 76.3 percent. New Orleans group occupancy was at 8.2 percent, down 65 percent for the week. San Diego reported 5.8 percent group occupancy and a decline of 82.3 percent. And perhaps surprisingly, New York City reported 28.4 percent group occupancy, and registered a 167 percent increase compared with last year's weekly results.
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