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Sunday, September 20, 2020

Hotels: Occupancy Rate Declined 30% Year-over-year

by Calculated Risk on 9/20/2020 01:00:00 PM

From HotelNewsNow.com: STR: US hotel results for week ending 12 September

U.S. hotel occupancy decreased slightly from the previous week, according to the latest data from STR.

6-12 September 2020 (percentage change from comparable week in 2019):

Occupancy: 48.5% (-30.2%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$98.99 (-25.5%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$47.96 (-48.1%)
...
The highest occupancy markets were those housing displaced residents from Hurricane Laura and western wildfires, with Louisiana North (77.2%) and Louisiana South (76.8%) showing the highest levels in the metric. The Oregon Area (73.7%) and California North (73.3%) markets were also among the top 5 highest occupancy levels for the week.
emphasis added
The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four week average.

Hotel Occupancy RateClick 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).

There was some boost by Hurricane Laura and the western fires, but it seems unlikely business travel will pickup significantly in the Fall.

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