In a slightly downgraded forecast for the U.S. hotel
industry, STR and Tourism Economics now anticipate that full recovery in hotel revenue
per available room remains unlikely until 2024. U.S. room demand is still
forecast to recover by 2023.
"Performance recovery is going to remain slow and well
off of the pre-pandemic pace until the context for travel improves and group
business begins to return," said STR president Amanda Hite. "To show
how far levels have fallen year over year, the 40 percent demand decrease we
project for Q3 2020 will be a substantial improvement from the 57 percent
decline realized during Q2."
Hite added that even with slight improvements in average
daily rate through 2021, pricing confidence will lag an eventual rise in
occupancy. The result is that the $32 billion gain projected for room revenue
from 2020 to 2021 still puts the industry at a level that is 32.5 percent lower
than in 2019, she said.
Compared with the previous forecast, the supply and ADR outlooks
are slightly better in both 2020 and 2021, but demand, occupancy and RevPAR are
expected to have greater losses in 2020 and a slower rebound in 2021 than
previously anticipated.
"Economic recovery is ongoing, but fragile, and
Covid-19 is expected to continue to define the travel environment through the
first quarter of 2021," said Tourism Economics president Adam Sacks.
"This sets a pace of tempered, cautious recovery in travel activity in the
near term, with much stronger growth anticipated in the second half of next
year."
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