This year, Veterans Day fell on a Tuesday — compared with a Monday a year ago — and this slowed U.S. travel during the week of Nov. 9-15.
U.S. hotel revenue per available room fell 4.6% on declining occupancy, which was down 2.6 percentage points. Average daily rate was also down 0.5%, which was the industry’s first decrease since the week of Oct. 19-25.
The slowdown was centered in the top 25 U.S. hotel markets, where weekly RevPAR fell 6.2% on a 4-percentage-point drop in occupancy and a sharp decrease in group demand because of the holiday. Hotel markets outside the Top 25 saw a smaller RevPAR decline (-2.9%) as they are less reliant on group business.
The sharpest decrease was seen on Veterans Day on Tuesday, Nov. 11, when RevPAR fell 12.5% overall and 15.2% in the top 25 markets. The holiday-induced declines continued Wednesday, Nov. 12, and Thursday, Nov. 13, when RevPAR retreated 7.5%.
Before the holiday, Sunday and Monday RevPAR dipped 1.8%, which was like the average (-2%) of the 16 weeks prior to the government shutdown. A similar comparison was seen using the 16 weeks ending Nov. 1, which included the shutdown but excluded the week ending Nov. 8 due to the easy 2024 presidential election comps.
The weekend days Friday, Nov. 14, and Saturday, Nov. 15, also performed similarly to prior to the shutdown with RevPAR flat versus the 16-week average of 0.1%.
Veterans Day midweek results resembled the recession
Since STR began daily data reporting, Veterans Day has fallen on Tuesday three times: 2003, 2008 and 2014.
The midweek (Tuesday-Thursday) RevPAR change varied greatly in each of those years. In 2014, midweek RevPAR was up 6.4% versus a decrease of 16.2% in 2008 during the Great Recession. That makes this year’s 9.2% decline look like a recession result.
Further, we reviewed all Veterans Day weeks when the holiday fell midweek. Of the 10 occurrences since 2001, this year’s result was the third worst behind 2009 and 2008. All other years showed midweek growth. Note, we excluded 2020 and 2021 from this analysis as they are one of the 10 occurrences.
Again, the big difference in the results is this year’s decrease in group demand, which showed a 14.4% midweek retreat versus the double-digit increases seen in the fortnight.
All classes of hotels saw weekly RevPAR decrease, ranging from down 1.8% in luxury to a 7.9% drop in economy hotels. Midweek RevPAR declined by more than 10% in both upper upscale and upscale. The remainder saw the measure fall by more than 6% with upper midscale hotels seeing the largest midweek decrease (-9.5%) of the remaining classes.
Holiday-induced conference shifts hurt many top 25 markets
New Orleans hotels saw RevPAR decline 31.2%, the largest weekly RevPAR decline among the top 25 markets due to a conference shift. A year ago, RevPAR in New Orleans was up 41.2% due to the International WorkBoat Show. Similar shifts were seen in Dallas, Miami and San Diego, where RevPAR saw sharp gains a year ago followed by sharp decreases this year due to the movement of the holiday.
But the news wasn’t all bad as hotels in Anaheim (Orange County), Minneapolis, Oahu, and St. Louis saw double-digit RevPAR gains in the week with Denver, Detroit, New York City, and Orlando also posting single-digit increases.
Additionally, college football games continued to drive RevPAR results with Wisconsin North hotels up 56.7% followed by the Mississippi market (+40.9%). Over the weekend, Mississippi RevPAR was up 100.9%.
Hurricane markets from 2024 continued to be a drag on year-over-year comps, down 21.7% in RevPAR this week versus a 26.7% increase seen a year ago.
College football markets reflecting national weekend trend
Given that college football schedules don’t match year over year, it’s best to look at the net change across the 96 college football markets we have identified. Weekend RevPAR in those markets was down 0.9% versus a 0.6% increase a week ago.
College football markets also saw declining occupancy over the weekend with flat ADR (0.0%). Mid-American Conference markets saw the highest weekend RevPAR growth (+8.3%) followed by SEC markets (+8%).
RevPAR in markets with a stadium capacity of 50,000 or more saw weekend RevPAR rise 1.1%. Over the past 12 weeks of college football, weekend RevPAR is down 2% on falling occupancy and flat ADR. That was also the case when we looked at markets with stadiums with more than 50,000 seats.
US hotel RevPAR likely to drop before Thanksgiving
An early view suggests that the week of Nov. 16-22 will be down for U.S. hotels. TSA screenings for the seven days ending Nov. 19 have fallen 3.6%. Even if screenings match last year’s comparable days for the remaining days of the week, full-week screenings will be down about 1.4%. Given that even when screenings have been up, room demand has retreated, it stands to reason that a drop in air travel will likely result in a decrease in room demand.
Additionally, the week before Thanksgiving has seen a drop in hotel room demand versus the prior week every year of the past 24 except in 2009 and 2016. Over the last 10 years, the week-on-week decrease has averaged 759,000 room nights with last year’s decrease nearly double that. Therefore, with weak airport screenings and the historical seasonal pattern, we should expect another RevPAR retreat.
Global performance advances again
Global hotel RevPAR moved ahead with a 2.1% increase on a same-store basis, excluding the U.S. In the previous week – Nov. 2-8 – growth was more than twice as high. The most recent week’s lower increase came from moderating ADR, which rose 1.5% versus the 5.8% gain a week prior.
Much of the lower ADR growth was driven by hotels in Canada and Germany, as both countries saw ADR fall after solid gains in the prior week. However, strong ADR growth was still seen across the globe with Japan and Spain seeing double-digit ADR increases along with high-single digit increases in the Caribbean, the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC), and India.
Germany’s hotel ADR declined 21.8% on the weekdays Monday to Wednesday, with shoulder days Sunday and Thursday seeing less of a decline (-9%) and the weekend days Friday and Saturday up 1.2%. Markets with the largest ADR decreases included Düsseldorf and Munich, both due to conference shifts. Excluding those two markets, Germany’s ADR was down 1% with flat RevPAR (+0.9%) versus the reported 14.7% RevPAR decline.
Canadian RevPAR fell 6.1% due decreases on shoulder days (-4.3%) and weekend days (-15.3%). Weekdays were up (+1.3%). Shoulder and weekend declines were due to falling ADR. Toronto was largely responsible for Canada’s weakness as hotel RevPAR was down 23.3% on a 29.3% ADR decrease, which materialized from Thursday through Saturday due to a difficult comp against Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour last year (Nov. 14-16, 2024). Difficult comps will occur again in the week of Nov. 16-22, which included Swift’s final shows in Toronto a year ago.
As we have seen and said for weeks, global hotel RevPAR will continue to forge ahead.
Isaac Collazo is senior director of analytics at STR.
This article represents an interpretation of data collected by CoStar's hospitality analytics firm, STR. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concerns. For more analysis of STR data, visit the data insights blog on STR.com.