by Calculated Risk on 1/07/2021 11:49:00 AM

From HotelNewsNow.com: STR: US hotel results for week ending 2 January

Thanks to a travel boost leading into the New Year’s holiday, U.S. weekly hotel occupancy improved noticeably from the previous week, according to STR‘s latest data through 2 January.

27 December 2020 through 2 January 2021 (percentage change from comparable week in 2019/2020):

• Occupancy: 40.6% (-17.2%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$107.93 (-21.5%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$43.81 (-35.1%)

Hotel demand jumped in week-over-comparisons while TSA checkpoint counts showed five days with more than 1 million passengers. Substantial hotel demand growth is not expected to continue as leisure travel once again dissipates after the holidays.
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 2021, black is 2020, blue is the median, and dashed light blue is for 2009 (the worst year since the Great Depression for hotels - before 2020).

Seasonally we'd expect business travel would start to pick up in the new year, but there will probably not be much pickup early this year.

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