The aftermath of Hurricane Ian and hotel demand in the hard-hit southeast U.S., particularly Florida, continues to have a measurable impact on weekly hotel performance for the total U.S., which also for the second straight week swiveled on the timing of holidays.
The latest weekly data from STR, CoStar’s hospitality analytics firm, shows that U.S. occupancy for the week ending Oct. 8 was 68.2%, up 1.9 percentage points from the previous week. Nationally, average daily rate was up 2.6% week over week to $154, and revenue per available room was $105, a 5.5% increase over the previous week.
In Florida, weekly occupancy jumped 9.5 points week over week to 70.4%, and ADR increased 11.8% week over week to $158. Without that bump from Florida’s hotels, U.S. hotel occupancy for the week was 68%, ADR was up 1.8% and RevPAR was up 3.5% week over week.
Having a broader effect on U.S. hotel performance was the timing of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, as well as the Columbus/Indigenous People’s Day holiday weekend, when according to STR’s School Break Report, half of all the K-12 schools that began the fall term in August were on fall break.
The week started slow due to the Yom Kippur holiday, observed Tuesday to Wednesday evenings, but hotel demand picked up on the weekend due to the fall school break.
Excluding the impact from Florida, U.S. weekday hotel occupancy was down 2.2 percentage points on Tuesday and Wednesday.
With subdued weekday occupancy, weekday nominal ADR was down 2.3%, excluding Florida, falling for a second consecutive week.
Occupancy was basically flat, down 0.2 percentage points week over week, Sunday and Monday. From Thursday through Saturday, however, occupancy showed solid growth with a 1.1-percentage-point increase on Thursday and a 5.7-percentage-point rise on Friday/Saturday.
For only the second time this year, and fifth since the start of the pandemic, weekend occupancy surpassed 80%. Florida hotel demand had a 0.2-percentage-point impact on weekend occupancy, bringing the total U.S. metric to 80.4%. That’s still below the 82% occupancy achieved in the same weekend of 2019, as 16,500 fewer rooms were sold this year and supply is up 2%.
Weekend ADR jumped 7.2% week over week to $176, the highest nominal level ever recorded by STR. Adjusted for inflation, real ADR was $152, the sixth-highest level since 2000.
Weekend nominal RevPAR also advanced to $141, the highest level ever recorded. Real, inflation-adjusted weekend RevPAR was $122, just 80 cents behind the record-holding fourth weekend of July 2021.
For the full week, U.S. hotel occupancy was up 4.3 percentage points over the same week in 2021, or up 3.8 percentage points excluding the impact from Florida.
Nominal ADR was 17% higher than in the comparable week of 2019 and 14% higher than a year ago. Nominal RevPAR was 13% higher than in 2019 and 21% better than a year ago.
Adjusted for inflation, real ADR for the full week was $133, slightly higher than in the comparable week of 2019. Inflation-adjusted RevPAR was $90, or 4% below the 2019 level.
Over the past 28 days, 52% of the 153 STR-defined markets had “peak” real RevPAR, exceeding 2019 levels. That percentage was higher than a week prior. Another 43% of markets were in “recovery,” with real RevPAR between 80% and 100% of 2019 levels. Seven markets, including Minneapolis, San Francisco, and San Jose were in “recession” as their real RevPAR was at just 70% of the 2019 comparable.
Market Performance
For the entire week, market occupancy ranged from 51% in Daytona Beach to 89% in Vermont. Excluding Florida, the market with the lowest weekly occupancy was the New Jersey Shore at 53%.
Even with the midweek religious observance, only 16 markets outside of Florida reported weekly occupancy below 60%, which was the least amount of the past nine weeks. The largest year-over-year occupancy decrease was in Louisiana South, down 19 points from a year ago when occupancy was elevated after Hurricane Ian.
Weekday occupancy declined by five or more percentage points week over week in 11 of the top 25 markets, including three in Florida. Markets in that group included Boston, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Even with the decline, weekday occupancy in Boston and New York remained in the mid-to-high 70% range with Boston leading at 77.8%. Weekday occupancy in Chicago and Washington, D.C., was in the low-60% range.
Of the 153 STR-defined U.S. markets outside of Florida, weekend occupancy was above 90% in 15. Sixty-one markets, or 40% of all markets, had weekend occupancy above 80%.
There were no markets nationwide with occupancy below 60%, which was a first since the weekend of July 15-16, 2022.
Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (97%) had the nation’s highest weekend occupancy at 97%, followed by San Diego at 94%. New York City had the nation’s fifth-highest weekend occupancy at 93%.
In Florida, Sarasota led with weekly occupancy of 83%, up 28.5 percentage points week over week and 21 percentage points over the same week in 2021. Sarasota’s hotel market also led the nation in ADR growth, up 29% week over week and 34% year over year.
Fort Lauderdale was the only Florida market in which occupancy declined, down 1.3 percentage points week over week to 71.3%.
While occupancy increased week over week in Daytona Beach and the Florida Keys, the metric remained on the low side, under 60%, and down from a year ago.
More than 28% of hotels in the markets affected by Hurricane Ian, from Fort Myers to Daytona Beach, had weekly hotel occupancy above 90% as a result of housing displaced residents and recovery workers.
The highest percentage of hotels with occupancy above 90% was in the Tampa East submarket, where 78% of reporting hotels were at or above that level. The Tampa Central Business District/Airport, Tampa North/Busch Gardens, Bradenton/Airport and Lakeland/Winter Haven submarkets all had more than 50% of their hotel stock above 90% occupancy for the week.
In the most-affected areas, from Sanibel Island to Marco Island, STR research has found 13 hotels, mostly independent and small, that were permanently closed or demolished by the hurricane. Seventy-five hotels, with approximately 6,000 total rooms, are temporarily closed with several having unknown reopen dates. STR is continuing manual research as well as weekly comparisons in daily data reporting to determine the status of hotels potentially affected.
Isaac Collazo is VP 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.