STR: October U.S. Hotel Metrics Up From September

The U.S. hotel industry resumed its recovery in October, with key performance metrics showing improvement from September’s numbers, STR reported.

October 2021 U.S. hotel occupancy was 62.9 percent compared with 61.2 percent for September. The October figure is 8.8 percent below October 2019 levels. October average daily rate was $134.78, up from $133.11 last month and up 1.2 percent from 2019 rates. Revenue per available room was $84.75, a 7.6 percent decline from 2019, but an improvement from September’s $82.04.

None of the top 25 markets reported higher occupancy in October 2021 than October 2019. The top 25 markets did report higher ADR than all other markets, according to STR.

Nashville had the highest occupancy level at 71.8 percent, still down 11.9 percent from the 2019 benchmark. Boston (70.6 percent) and Los Angeles (70.2 percent) were the only other markets with occupancy levels higher than 70 percent. Only Oahu Island reported occupancy below 50 percent, at 48.9 percent.

STR and Tourism Economics earlier this month boosted their forecast, moving up their projected full U.S. hotel industry recovery to late 2022 for demand and ADR, and from 2024 to 2023 for RevPAR, at least in nominal terms. With inflation taken into consideration, real ADR and RevPAR won’t fully recover until 2025.

Donna M. Airoldi  www.businesstravelnews.com