March came in like a lion in terms of U.S. hotel performance.
And it stayed robust throughout the month and into April, according to Isaac Collazo, STR's senior director of analytics, on the latest episode of "Tell Me More: A Hospitality Data Podcast."
March U.S. revenue per available room was up 5.9% compared to March 2024, which was the best March performance since 2023 and "even higher than my estimates," Collazo said.
That strong performance month took 2026 year-to-date RevPAR growth to 3.8% over the prior year.
Even more important is that U.S. hotel average daily rate growth drove those March RevPAR gains to the tune of 3.8% up, Collazo said.
"This is the first time we've seen ADR above inflation in 14 months," he said, noting that the March U.S. inflation rate was 3.3%.
All segments excluding economy hotels saw room demand increase by more than 2.8% as well, Collazo said.
"It was just crazy," he said.
"... in a good way," added co-host Jan Freitag, CoStar's national director of hospitality analytics.
Freitag spoke about his recent immersion in FIFA World Cup 2026 hotel and travel demand, now that the start of the tournament is less than 50 days away.
His working theory? "It will be the tale of Two World Cups," Freitag said. "I think the June matches, the early-round matches, are going to be sometimes underwhelming. But I think the things happening in July — the last 16 teams standing, the powerhouse teams of France, Spain, Argentina, Germany — that's I think where we're going to see full stadia."
Also in this episode
- Collazo shared U.S. market performance in March, pointing out that 131 markets including Chicago, Dallas, Orlando and Washington, D.C., saw the highest hotel demand ever in the first quarter.
- Las Vegas and San Francisco both posted positive performances in March, and San Diego saw the largest demand growth in the U.S. in the month.
- Freitag looked at data around inbound and outbound U.S. travel, debating how the World Cup will affect total 2026 travel.
- Freitag shared recent data analysis that looks at how U.S. hotels are aging and how those trends intersect with the hotel development pipeline.