by Calculated Risk on 11/13/2020 08:45:00 AM

From HotelNewsNow.com: STR: US hotel results for week ending 7 November

U.S. weekly hotel occupancy was relatively flat from the previous week, according to the latest data from STR through 7 November.

1-7 November 2020 (percentage change from comparable week in 2019):

• Occupancy: 44.2% (-35.9%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$91.40 (-31.1%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$40.36 (-55.8%)

Down slightly from 44.4% the prior week, the country’s occupancy level was its lowest since the week of June 14-20.
emphasis added

Since there is a seasonal pattern to the occupancy rate - see graph below - we can track the year-over-year change in occupancy to look for any improvement. This table shows the year-over-year change since the week ending Sept 19, 2020:

Week Ending	YoY Change, Occupancy Rate
9/19	-31.9%
9/26	-31.5%
10/3	-29.6%
10/10	-29.2%
10/17	-30.7%
10/24	-31.7%
10/31	-29.0%
11/7	-35.9%

This suggests no improvement over the last 8 weeks, and occupancy might be getting worse. Some of the recent decline in the occupancy rate is just seasonal.

The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four week average.

Click on graph for larger image.

The red line is for 2020, dash light blue is 2019, blue is the median, and black is for 2009 (the worst year since the Great Depression for hotels - before 2020).

Seasonally we'd expect the occupancy rate to decline into the new year. Note that there was little pickup in business travel that usually happens in the Fall.

Note: Y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the seasonal change.