US Hotel Industry Records Best Performance Since Pre-Pandemic

In yet another promising sign for travel and tourism’s recovery, the U.S. hotel industry saw its highest monthly performance levels since the month before the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2021, according to the latest data from STR.

Occupancy for the month reached 57.5 percent, average daily rate (ADR) climbed to $110.34 and revenue per available room (RevPAR) came in at $63.46. Occupancy and RevPAR were the highest achieved for any month since February 2020 and ADR was the highest it’s been since the pandemic was initially declared in March 2020.

Despite the progress, the figures remain far below the pre-pandemic comparable of April 2019. Occupancy was down 15.2 percent compared to two years earlier while ADR was 16 percent lower and RevPAR was down 28.8 percent.

Tampa experienced the highest occupancy level among the top 25 markets at 77 percent, followed by Miami at 72 percent. The latter also recorded the highest ADR ($233.80) and RevPAR ($168.31) levels for April 2021. Remarkably, Miami’s ADR level climbed 6.9 percent higher than the pre-pandemic comparable, STR announced.

On the other end of the spectrum, Boston (40.4 percent) and Minneapolis (42.5 percent) performed the worst among the top 25 markets in terms of occupancy last month.

While there’s still much progress to be made, the latest developments are awfully encouraging and show just far the industry has come after recording all-time lows in occupancy and RevPAR in 2020.