STR: U.S. Hotel Recovery Accelerates in May

All three key performance metrics for the U.S. hotel industry—occupancy, average daily rate and revenue per available room—improved from April and reported their best monthly figures since February 2020, according to STR.

May occupancy was 59.3 percent, ADR was $117.69, and RevPAR was $69.81. The company provided comparisons to May 2019 performance data instead of year-over-year changes because of the Covid-19 pandemic’s effect on last year’s data. Compared with May 2019 data, occupancy was down 13.5 percent, ADR declined 10.9 percent, and RevPAR was off 22.9 percent.

Among the top 25 markets in May 2021, Miami reported the highest levels of all three metrics. Occupancy there was 74.2 percent, which was just 2.6 percent below the May 2019 level. RevPAR was $175.23, and ADR was $236.07, which was 33.6 percent higher than the pre-pandemic comparable, according to STR. Tampa was the only other city with occupancy in the 70s, at 72.2 percent.

The markets with the lowest occupancy levels in May 2021 were Minneapolis at 43.5 percent, San Francisco/San Mateo at 44 percent, Washington, D.C. at 45.2 percent, Boston at 45.9 percent, and Chicago at 49 percent.

Donna M. Airoldi www.businesstravelnews.com