The 24-month outlook for U.S. group booking activity continues to show weakness, despite a slight pickup in booking pace from last quarter, according to Cvent's 2019 Group Business Outlook.
At the end of the second quarter, Cvent tallied room nights awarded via its system for future stays. For five of the next six quarters, that number has declined from a similar outlook a year prior. A recovery appears to be coming, however, based on bookings for the second and third quarters of 2021.
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.jpg "Cvent 2019 Quarter 2")
Group RFPs awarded during the second quarter for all future events increased 9.2 percent. However, this was a slowdown from the 9.7 percent increase in the first quarter. The second-quarter number landed at 75.4 percent of the 12-month moving average; the first quarter's group RFPs awarded also fell below the 12-month moving average. In the prior quarter, by comparison, awarded RFPs had risen 16.8 percent year over year, the raw number representing 137.4 percent of the 12-month moving average. That performance at the end of 2018 largely owed to companies closing contracts before many major hotel companies reduced their commissions from 10 percent to 7 percent earlier this year.
"As we look to the next two years, our sourcing data shows a relatively flat awarded group rooms pace and a slight downturn in awarded RFP activity within the U.S. market," said Cvent senior director of analytics Jeffrey Emenecker. "Supply continues to increase, but booking pace is not keeping up, which means a drop in group occupancy across the board."
The average size of group blocks declined 0.6 percent to 222.8 rooms from a year prior; the average peak room nights remained the same, at 74.8 rooms. Event duration decreased 2.6 percent to 3.3 days. The average booking window also declined 0.9 percent to 183.6 days.
Cvent changed its methodology with this most recent report. Instead of showing year-over-year quarterly percent changes in group room occupancy, the report now shows the change of awarded room nights booked on the Cvent platform.