Hotels: Occupancy Rate Down 11.0% Compared to Same Week in 2019

Note: The year-over-year occupancy comparisons are easy, since occupancy declined sharply at the onset of the pandemic, so CoStar is comparing to 2019.

From CoStar: STR: US Hotel Occupancy Stays Flat Week Over Week

U.S. hotel occupancy remained relatively flat week over week, while average daily rate rose, according to STR’s latest data through September 25.

September 19-25, 2021 (percentage change from comparable week in 2019*):

o Occupancy: 63.2% (-11.0%)
o Average daily rate (ADR): $133.69 (-2.0%)
o Revenue per available room (RevPAR): $84.54 (-12.8%)

A week after eclipsing 1 million for the first time since the earliest days of the pandemic, group demand rose again to almost 1.3 million for the week. At the same time, group ADR moved past $200 for the first time since February 2020.
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, dashed purple is 2019, and dashed light blue is for 2009 (the worst year on record for hotels prior to 2020).

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

The Summer months had decent occupancy with solid leisure travel, and occupancy was only off about 7% in July and August compared to 2019.

But it is uncertain what will happen over the next couple of months with business travel. Usually weekly occupancy increases to around 70% in the weeks following Labor Day due to renewed business travel.