U.S. hotel performance for the week of April 5-11 finished with a modest 0.4% increase in revenue per available room, though aggregate weekly performance masked a sharp divide between weekday and weekend results. Early weekday declines due to Easter were offset by a pronounced late-week lift, leaving headline results relatively flat.
Easter Sunday saw the largest decline and led to progressively softer declines through Tuesday. Hotel performance turned positive after midweek, with RevPAR, average daily rate and occupancy all increasing year over year from Wednesday through Saturday. While weekly room demand declined 0.6%, this was still the second-highest demand level for an Easter week since 2000.
The primary headwind during the week was a pullback in business and convention travel following the Easter holiday. Weekday group demand from Sunday to Thursday declined by 564,000 rooms year over year across luxury and upper-upscale hotels, representing a 35% drop, the largest weekday group decline observed in nearly a year. Larger business-oriented markets experienced the brunt of this weakness, with the top 25 markets collectively posting a 9.7% decline in weekday RevPAR. All but one top 25 market recorded weekday group demand declines. Las Vegas saw the steepest drop in weekday RevPAR, down 48%, driven by an 83.6% decrease in group demand.
While group and business travel softened early in the week, transient demand surged as spring-break travel accelerated. Transient room demand increased by 875,000 rooms, marking the largest increase since New Year’s Eve, as more than twice as many K–12 public school districts were on spring break compared to last year. This influx of leisure travelers fueled double-digit RevPAR growth in Orange County, California; Orlando; Miami; and Tampa; along with strong gains in several non-top 25 markets that are less dependent on business travel. Markets outside the top 25 collectively posted a 4.3% increase in RevPAR, led by outsized gains in South Carolina, Delaware, Florida, and Hawaii, each of which recorded RevPAR growth exceeding 15% for the week.
As the impact of reduced group demand diminished later in the week, the strength of transient travel became more evident in aggregate results. Weekend U.S. hotel RevPAR increased 7.4% year over year, supported by a 4.5% rise in ADR and a 2.1-percentage-point lift in occupancy. Nearly 70% of all markets reported gains in weekend RevPAR, including 18 of the top 25 U.S. hotel markets. Collectively, top 25 markets posted an 8.8% increase in weekend RevPAR, a sharp reversal from the 9.7% weekday decline. Markets such as Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., San Diego, and Minneapolis – each of which recorded double-digit weekday RevPAR declines – registered some of the strongest weekend rebounds.
The contrast between weekday and weekend performance also extended to the hotel class level. All classes except luxury hotels experienced weekday declines across RevPAR, ADR and occupancy, while every class recorded gains across all three metrics on the weekend. Luxury hotels were the lone exception during the week, maintaining positive weekday RevPAR despite a decline in room demand, supported by a 9.9% increase in ADR. Overall, the pattern points to Easter-related displacement driving early-week softness and spring-break travel supporting a late-week rebound.
Global RevPAR impacted by post-Easter decline
Excluding the U.S., global hotel RevPAR on a same-store and constant USD basis fell 12.6% in the week of April 5-11. Global RevPAR has declined for three weeks. As expected, the largest declines were seen Sunday through Thursday, with lesser decreases on Friday and Saturday.
The sharpest decrease was once again in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, where RevPAR fell 66.6%. This is the third consecutive week where the measure was down by more than 66%. Five of the six GCC countries saw RevPAR fall by more than 50% with the U.A.E. reporting the largest decrease (-91%). Saudi Arabia was also down but significantly less than the others (-25%).
Germany and Italy also saw sharp RevPAR decreases this week with the former down 50% and the latter falling 29%.
While most of the world saw the post-Easter drop, several areas saw growth including the Caribbean, Japan and Spain.
Cole Martin is an analytics and insights specialist at STR.