by Calculated Risk on 12/24/2020 02:23:00 PM

From HotelNewsNow.com: STR US hotel results for week ending 19 December

U.S. weekly hotel occupancy decreased slightly from the previous week, according to the latest data from STR through 19 December.

13-19 December 2020 (percentage change from comparable week in 2019):

• Occupancy: 36.8% (-26.4%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$85.50 (-21.9%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$31.45 (-42.5%)

The industry also surpassed one billion unsold room nights for the first time on record.
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 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: Y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the seasonal change.

Since there is a seasonal pattern to the occupancy rate - see graph above - 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:

This suggests no improvement over the last 3 months.

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%
11/14	-32.7%
11/21	-32.6%
11/28	-28.5%
12/5	-37.9%
12/12	-37.4%
12/19	-26.4%