STR: Performance metrics continue to decline

The U.S. hotel industry reported significant year-over-year declines in the three key performance metrics during the week of April 5-11, 2020, according to data from STR. The lowered performance reflects the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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In comparison with the week of April 7-13, 2019, the industry recorded the following:

  • Occupancy: -69.8 percent to 21 percent
  • Average daily rate: -45.6 percent to $74.18
  • Revenue per available room: -83.6 percent to $15.61

“There was not much of a change from last week. As we’ve noted, RevPAR declines of this severity are our temporary new normal,” said Jan Freitag, STR’s senior VP of lodging insights. “Several weeks of data also point to occupancy in the 20 percent range to be the low point, and economy hotels holding at a higher occupancy level is the pattern right now.”

Aggregate data for the top 25 markets showed steeper declines across the metrics: occupancy (-75.1 percent to 19.6 percent), ADR (-51.7 percent to $81.58) and RevPAR (-88 percent to $16.01).  

Among those top 25 markets, Oahu Island, Hawaii, experienced the largest decrease in occupancy (-90.9 percent) and the only single-digit absolute occupancy level (7.1 percent). The drop in occupancy resulted in the steepest decline in RevPAR (-94 percent to $10.26). 

San Francisco/San Mateo, Calif., posted the largest decrease in ADR (-62.5 percent to $107.42). 

Of note, occupancy in New York City was down 71.7 percent to 24.8 percent. In Seattle, occupancy dropped 70.9 percent to 20.2 percent. Each of those absolute occupancy levels were higher than the previous week, which is likely attributable to an influx of medical workers and first responders requiring lodging in those cities.