U.S. hotel performance increased across all primary metrics for the 14th consecutive week in the week of July 12-18.
Revenue per available room (RevPAR) was up 6.3% as average daily rate (ADR) increased by 5.2% and occupancy was up 0.8 percentage points. While the final stages of the World Cup provided a meaningful lift to several major U.S. hotel markets, last week's performance demonstrated that hospitality industry growth remained broader than the tournament itself.
Each day of the week recorded at least a 5% increase in RevPAR compared to the same day last year, and excluding the final week's World Cup host markets, RevPAR was still up 4.4%, supported by a 2.8% increase in ADR and a 1.4 percentage-point increase in occupancy. ADR continued to drive overall growth while occupancy gains reflected an easy comparison against a down year in 2025. Despite last week's 72.4% occupancy being the highest of any week this year, it was 1.2 percentage points below the same week in 2024.
World Cup
In the final full week of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the four markets that hosted a match combined for a tournament high of 23.8% RevPAR growth and a 29% increase in ADR. Although there were technically only three matches played through last Saturday, the tournament's closing weekend generated the strongest hotel performance of the event. The impact of Sunday's final was evident in New York City, where demand peaked the night before the match. Additional compression came from Fanatics Fest, which was held at the Javits Center from July 16-19 and overlapped with the tournament finale.
On Saturday night, New York City recorded a RevPAR of $584.32 due to an ADR of $610.48 and occupancy of 95.7%, which were all records for a single day in a U.S. World Cup host market during the tournament. For context, inflation-adjusted ADR in New York City was $480.77 on the Saturday before the 2014 Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium.
For the seven other U.S. World Cup markets that hosted their final tournament match before last week, hotel performance began to normalize to pre-tournament levels. Combined, these markets were up 6.6% in RevPAR, driven by a 5.3% increase in ADR and a 0.9-percentage-point lift in occupancy, which were all just slightly above the overall U.S. growth rates. The increase in occupancy was a change of pace for many of these markets that experienced business travel displacement throughout the tournament.
Seattle provided the clearest example of this World Cup-driven hotel occupancy vacuum. Over the four weeks in which matches were played in Seattle, occupancy averaged 73.9%, which was 6.9 percentage points below the same period in 2025. In the first full week following the tournament, occupancy rebounded to 90.5%, up 3.3 percentage points year over year. Several overlapping conferences helped drive a 41.5% increase in luxury and upper-upscale group demand, suggesting that many groups delayed or redirected travel during the tournament rather than eliminating it altogether.
Atlanta, meanwhile, continued its World Cup hosting duties as the site of Wednesday's semifinal match between England and Argentina. Occupancy declined 8.2 percentage points year over year, contributing to a 6.4% drop in weekly RevPAR. Despite hosting a sold-out semifinal, Atlanta sold roughly 61,000 fewer hotel room nights than during the same week last year, almost entirely due to a 41.4% decline in group demand. The increase in World Cup-related travel was not enough to offset the absence of citywide conferences that either relocated to other markets or shifted dates to avoid the tournament.
The final week reinforced that the World Cup's hotel impact was primarily rate-driven in active host markets while also displacing portions of traditional business and group travel demand.
Class
U.S. luxury hotels recorded the strongest performance of any chain-scale segment last week. RevPAR increased 15.4%, driven by a 16.1% increase in ADR. No other class exceeded 6% RevPAR growth during the week. Interestingly, luxury hotels were also the only segment to experience an occupancy decline compared to last year, underscoring that the segment's outperformance was driven almost entirely by pricing power.
Global results
Global RevPAR rose for a fourth consecutive week, up 0.7% on a comparable and constant USD basis excluding the U.S. However, the growth rate was the lowest of the four, dragged down by China, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Mexico. RevPAR in the latter two was down by more 13% while China fell by more than 6%. Excluding those three countries/regions, global RevPAR was up 3.5% and in line with the prior 12 weeks.
Mexico continued to see falling demand across the country, with the largest declines in Mexico City, Pacific Central (Acapulco, Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta), and Mexican Caribbean. All but three markets saw RevPAR decline in the week and this week’s decrease was the largest since early April.
India's hotel performance continued to lead among the large countries followed by the Caribbean, Japan, France and Germany. Canada also saw a second week of solid performance growth but Vancouver — a World Cup market — continued to struggle.
Cole Martin is Analytics and Insights Specialist at STR and Isaac Collazo is senior director of analytics at STR.