U.S. Market Recovery Monitor – 23 October 2021 – STR
U.S. Market Recovery Monitor – 23 October 2021
For the week ending 23 October, U.S. hotel occupancy tumbled slightly to 63.9% from 65.0% in the previous week. The decline was driven mostly by a weaker Sunday, down five percentage points week on week, after Sunday had driven the previous week’s performance due to the Columbus Day holiday. The weekend was also soft, falling two percentage points after dropping one percentage point in the previous week. There is good news, however. Monday through Thursday occupancy improved for a third consecutive week, which we believe is a result of rising business travel. Occupancy increased 0.5 percentage points to 61% on those four days. Some may argue that the four-day gain was a result of a weak Monday in the previous week, due to the aforementioned holiday. However, Tuesday through Thursday was also up and slightly stronger than the four-day period with occupancy at 62%. And, despite the decrease in the total week’s occupancy, the index to 2019 increased by a point. In 2019, weekly occupancy fell by two percentage points versus the one percentage point decline this week.
While there is growing evidence of business travel, leisure travel remains a strong driver of performance. Grouping the days of the week into three categories, “Start” (Sunday & Monday), “Work” (Tuesday-Thursday) and “Weekend” (Friday & Saturday), we found that weekends have showed the most resilience with occupancy of 77% in the past six weeks. Work days occupancy has been steadily increasing over the past six weeks after bottoming out the week of Labor Day. A similar trend was seen in the Top 25 Markets, where the week’s work days averaged 60% occupancy with key business centers (Boston, Los Angeles & New York City) above 65%. Start day occupancy has been steadfast over the period at 55%. As compared with 2019, however, start days are relatively stronger with an index of 89 versus 84 for work days. The index for weekends has averaged 98 over the past six weeks and about the same from Memorial Day on.
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Categories: Trends