As expected based on history, U.S. hotel revenue per available room fell 1.8% during the week of Jan. 18-24 due to the MLK holiday, but the decrease was much larger than anticipated because of Winter Storm Fern.
The impact of the storm could be clearly seen over the weekend days Friday and Saturday, when RevPAR was down 6.2% on falling occupancy. Over the remaining days of the week from Sunday to Thursday, U.S. hotels saw flat RevPAR, which was better than the in the same MLK week of the previous two years. The post-MLK weekend, however, was the worst since 2018, excluding 2020.
While hotel demand was down on the weekend, average daily rate was up 0.6% despite the 3.9-percentage-point occupancy decrease. Weekdays, where occupancy increased 0.9 percentage points, saw ADR fall 1.6%; the largest MLK week decrease since 2009, excluding 2020. Overall, ADR for the entire week was down 1% with occupancy falling 0.5 percentage points via flattish year-over-year demand (-0.2%).
Weekday performance was led by hotels in non-top 25 and non-hurricane hotel markets where RevPAR gained 6.7%. That group included Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Mobile, Alabama, where RevPAR growth exceeded 30%. In total, 47 of the 135 markets in that category saw double-digit RevPAR growth this week. The top 25 U.S. hotel markets saw the measure fall 2.8% during the weekdays due to a 59.6% fall in Washington, D.C., because of difficult comps to last year’s presidential inauguration. Excluding Washington, D.C., top 25 weekday RevPAR was up 4.9%, resulting in a total U.S. weekday RevPAR gain of 3.2%. Besides Washington, D.C., Atlanta saw weekday RevPAR fall 35.2%; also a difficult comp to last year’s college football championship game. Weekday RevPAR in hurricane markets fell 15.8% with Las Vegas down 9.6%.
Weekend RevPAR was severely affected by Winter Storm Fern. Our analysis found 48 U.S. hotel markets in its path, including nine of the top 25 markets. Weekend RevPAR dropped 20.5% in the 48 Fern markets with the nine top 25 falling 13.1%. Gatlinburg/ Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, saw the largest decrease (-65.2%) followed by Nashville (-52.3%). The remaining top 25 markets – excluding Tampa, a 2024 hurricane market – and Las Vegas, saw RevPAR advance 1.6% on rising occupancy and ADR. All other markets saw RevPAR increase by 1% over the weekend. RevPAR in the 2024 hurricane markets, several of which were also in Fern’s path, were down 15% over the weekend with Augusta, Georgia; Columbia, South Carolina; Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina; and North Carolina West seeing RevPAR declines of more than 30%.
If we categorize all U.S. hotel markets into six mutually exclusive groups, RevPAR for the full week was down the most in Washington, D.C. (-53.9%), followed by Atlanta (-30%), 2024 hurricane markets (-15.6%), Las Vegas (-8.2%), and Fern markets (-2.4%). RevPAR was up in the remaining 110 markets, increasing 5.4%. The latter is very encouraging as both occupancy (+1.5 percentage points) and ADR (+2.5%) drove the gain but one week isn’t a trend.
Like with everything else this week, on the surface, weekly RevPAR change by chain scale is discouraging, ranging from down 0.4% in Upscale to down 5.4% in economy. However, if you strip out Las Vegas and Washington, D.C., and focus on weekday performance, you’ll find a different story. Luxury was up 8.5% on weekdays with every other chain scale seeing 4% or more RevPAR gains except midscale (0.0%) and economy (-4.5%). The latter two are still feeling the impact of the 2024 hurricanes. Excluding those markets, midscale-class hotels were up 4.1% in weekday RevPAR with economy slightly up (+0.2%).
Weekday group demand was slightly down among luxury and upper-upscale class hotels (-0.8%), falling sharply over the weekend, particularly in the Fern markets. Excluding Atlanta, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C., top 25 weekday group demand was solid, increasing by 6.5%. Detroit, New York, New Orleans, San Francisco and six other top 25 markets all posted double-digit weekday group gains. We surmise that the large gains were due to easy comps given meeting planners stayed away from this week a year ago due to the presidential inauguration.
History suggests that demand for the week of Jan. 25-31, will fall. We expect the decrease to be more dramatic given the impact of Winter Storm Fern on the weekend of this reporting week and its lingering effects. As of Jan. 24, month-to-date RevPAR is up 1.3% but we anticipate that it will come down.
Global hotel performance insights
Global hotel RevPAR on a constant USD and same-store basis grew 6.1% on rising occupancy as ADR was up a scant 0.8%. ADR was held back by China, where it fell 3%. While it’s true that global ADR (+3.4%) is higher without China, global RevPAR is lower because China saw strong occupancy growth in the week. Other countries with falling ADR included France, Japan and Mexico. Those three countries were also the only ones to see a retreat in RevPAR this week among the key ones we follow.
The Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) countries saw strong RevPAR growth (17.1%) as did Africa, Italy and the Caribbean, where RevPAR advanced by more than 11% on rising ADR.
After a fortnight of declines, the U.K. saw RevPAR grow (+1%) on rising ADR. RevPAR in London, the country’s largest market, grew 6.4%. This was also its first increase of the past three weeks. Without London, the U.K. would have seen negative ADR and RevPAR. Manchester, M4 Corridor, and East Sussex/Surrey/West Sussex – the next three largest U.K. markets – were all down significantly.
Canada continued to see RevPAR advance, increasing by 4.5% this week on a same-store basis and slightly more when including all hotels. Since the first week of March 2025, demand and RevPAR have increased in 36 of the past 48 weeks. This week’s gain was somewhat in line with the previous three. Toronto, the largest market, saw RevPAR rise 9.1% on strong ADR growth. Montreal was also positive this week while Vancouver fell.
Isaac Collazo is senior director of analytics at STR. Cole Martin is an analytics and insights specialist at STR.