by Calculated Risk on 11/03/2019 10:37:00 AM

From Jan Freitag at HotelNewsNow.com: US hotels post RevPAR losses for second month in 2019

The RevPAR upcycle is now in its 115th month, and 112 of those months had positive RevPAR change. So, I wonder if it’s time to retire the term “upcycle” if RevPAR is declining, as it did in September. The long-run monthly RevPAR growth chart now looks like this, but the header needs a qualifier (“three small interruptions”) and so it may be time to come up with a better descriptor.

From HotelNewsNow.com: STR: US hotel results for week ending 26 October

The U.S. hotel industry reported overall flat year-over-year results in the three key performance metrics during the week of 20-26 October 2019, according to data from STR.

In comparison with the week of 21-27 October 2018, the industry recorded the following:

• Occupancy: -0.2% to 70.5%
• Average daily rate (ADR): +0.2% to US$135.00
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): flat at US$95.15
emphasis added

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 2019, dash light blue is 2018 (record year), blue is the median, and black is for 2009 (the worst year probably since the Great Depression for hotels).

Occupancy has been solid in 2019, and close to-date compared to the previous 4 years.

However occupancy will be lower this year than in 2018 (the record year).

Seasonally, the 4-week average of the occupancy rate will now start to decline into the winter.

Data Source: STR, Courtesy of HotelNewsNow.com