According to the latest edition of the Duetto Pulse Report—which compares data from May with April, and cross-references this with previous years’ performance—hotel performance in the Americas is back to pre-pandemic levels.
In North America, hotels had the third consecutive month of growth in revenue per available room, exceeding 2019 figures for stays in May. Month-over-month booking pace trends continue to show strengthening demand. However, the report also shows lower average daily rates on recent bookings, which could indicate a return to the pre-pandemic practice of discounting closer to arrival date to fill rooms.
In Latin America, June bookings are up 149 percent on the previous month and show huge gains made since the same time in 2020 when pandemic lockdowns were imposed.
On the books, committed occupancy for North America continued to improve sequentially. But, for reservations, OTB for July and August stay dates ADR growth is stagnating, up just 4 percent year over year in July and down -1 percent year over year for August.
On-the-books committed occupancy in Latin America is up over the prior year every month until December. Gains remain very much focused on the short term, as with every global region, with May OTB up 61 percent and June up 70 percent.
Guest satisfaction scores in North America remain the lowest among global regions and are currently down -5 percent below 2019 levels. Before the pandemic, casinos and short-term rentals enjoyed guest review scores that were a couple of percentage points higher than traditional hotels. While still higher today, traditional hotels have narrowed this guest satisfaction gap over recent months.
Guest satisfaction for Latin American hotels saw a sudden dropoff over recent months to -3 percent compared to 2019.
“One of the hotel industry’s shifting landscapes pertains to the diverging trajectory of guest satisfaction and RevPAR recovery trends. Lodging demand and pricing are moving in a positive direction, while guest review scores are sequentially declining due to numerous operating headwinds,” said Lloyd Biddle, director of product marketing at Duetto, in a statement. “Commercial teams should be proactive in thinking about what kind of long-term ramifications this challenge will is going to have on the guest experience and the ability to drive growth. After all, the amount that a guest pays influences their level of satisfaction. Commercial strategy can only come to life if we put the guest in the center and aggregate all the data points across the journey.”