US hotel performance retreats as occupancy falls for 17th straight week

Following the U.S. hotel industry’s first weekly increase in revenue per available room since August, RevPAR declined 0.7% for the week of Oct. 12-18. Average daily rate was up 1.7% but came in below the rate of inflation (~+2.7%). The gain in ADR was offset by hotel occupancy, which dipped for a 17th consecutive week. In 18 of the past 25 weeks since the beginning of May, RevPAR has decreased year over year with occupancy down in all but two of those weeks.

San Francisco was a key driver for the U.S. hotel industry as host to Dreamforce – the annual Salesforce conference – which shifted from Sept. 17-19, 2024, to Oct. 14-16, 2025. San Francisco’s weekly RevPAR was up 85.3% versus 71.6% when the conference was held last year. Both hotel occupancy and ADR nudged higher for this year’s event. Excluding San Francisco, U.S. RevPAR was down 1.9% for the week.

While the overall U.S. hotel results may still seem gloomy, there were once again bright spots. The top 25 U.S. hotel markets saw a slight uptick in weekly RevPAR (+0.1%) on solid ADR growth (+2.8%). ADR was exceptionally strong Monday through Wednesday with gains of more than 9% on each of those days. Dreamforce 2025 drove more than 450 basis points of the ADR growth but not all of it. Double-digit weekday ADR growth was also seen in Chicago (+21.8%), Las Vegas (+17.6%) and Washington, D.C. (+14.6%). In all, 11 of the top 25 markets reported weekday ADR growth above the rate of inflation. With the sharp ADR increase, weekday top 25 RevPAR increased 6.2%, but if you exclude San Francisco, the metric was up just 1% due to harsh decreases in Miami, New Orleans, Orlando, Tampa and San Diego.

Outside the top 25 markets, weekday RevPAR dropped 1% on falling occupancy with ADR up 1.1%. Less than half of the remaining markets – 72 of 147 – saw weekday RevPAR advance. Even with the weak growth outside the top 25 markets, total U.S. weekday RevPAR was up 2.4%.

Shoulder days Sunday and Thursday in the top 25 U.S. hotel markets were mixed as RevPAR was down 0.8% on declining hotel occupancy with ADR up 2.1%. As seen with the weekday results, however, much of the shoulder-day ADR growth came from San Francisco. Without San Francisco, RevPAR on those days would have been down 2.7% due to muted ADR growth and falling occupancy.

Anaheim (Orange County), Chicago and St. Louis were standouts, as each saw double-digit RevPAR increases on those days. Those were offset by brutal declines in Atlanta, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, and Tampa – Hurricane Helene and Milton comps from last year played into the decline in Tampa while Miami also had difficult comps to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour (18-20 October).

Shoulder day RevPAR growth outside the top 25 markets dropped 0.6%, again on declining occupancy and a subdued ADR growth. Total U.S. shoulder-day RevPAR was down 0.8%, which was similar to the performance seen in the prior weeks.

On weekend days Friday and Saturday, RevPAR was down 4.2% across the nation with a much sharper decrease in the top 25 markets (-6.6%). Eight markets in the top 25 experienced double-digit declines, including Miami, where ADR dropped 38.9% due to its difficult Taylor Swift comp. The remaining hotel markets were also down but to a much smaller extent (-2.2%). Of course, college football continued to drive markets with Birmingham, which saw the largest RevPAR increase (+122%) due to the Tennessee-Alabama game in nearby Tuscaloosa. Alabama North and Alabama South also saw large RevPAR gains with the latter also benefiting from the Missouri-Auburn matchup.

Last year’s 13 hurricane markets – those affected by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton – continued to be a drag on total U.S. hotel results as they collectively fell 19.2% accounting for all of the weekly RevPAR deficit. Excluding the 13 markets, U.S. RevPAR was up 0.3%. But, if you exclude San Francisco, given its large positive impact, U.S. RevPAR would be down 1%.

Orlando hotels had inconsistent results this week with strong ADR (+8.5%) despite occupancy dropping 5.9 percentage points. Same-store analysis showed like results for the market with occupancy down in every submarket but ADR on the rise in most. The largest ADR increases were in Orlando I-Drive (+12.4%), Kissimmee East (+8.3%) and Lake Buena Vista (+6.6%). Luxury class hotels saw the largest ADR gain (+12.7%) across the entire market with upper upscale and upscale rising by more than 6% despite falling occupancy.

Given the impact of Dreamforce on total results, it’s not surprising that Sunday through Wednesday RevPAR surged in luxury (+10.1%) and somewhat in upper upscale (+4.6%) hotels due to large ADR gains (+10.3% and +5.8%, respectively). All other classes saw RevPAR fall during those days.

Excluding San Francisco and hurricane markets, luxury and upper-upscale hotels saw less of an uplift (+2.8%, +0.1%, respectively) with economy hotels down 6.4%. RevPAR in the remaining classes ranged from down 2.2% in upper midscale to down 3.5% in midscale.

In the hurricane markets, class results were grim with RevPAR in upper-upscale hotels down 11.7% and dropping 37.8% in economy with the other classes falling in between. Luxury, however, saw RevPAR growth of 3.4%.

Excluding the U.S., global hotel RevPAR rose 6.4% the week of Oct. 12-18, settling back down after a double-digit increase in the prior week. Global hotel ADR rose 7.1%.

ADR remained slightly elevated as compared to its average since May (+5.3%). The higher global ADR growth was driven by Germany (+17.9%), where ADR growth was well above its 25-week average. Spain, and Italy also reported double-digit ADR growth. However, the strong ADR growth wasn’t limited to only three countries; the Middle East and Africa region, along with the U.K. and Japan, saw weekly ADR gains above 8%.

With its sharp ADR increase, weekly same-store RevPAR in Germany rose 21.1%. Performance in the country overall was lifted by Düsseldorf as host of K 2025, a large trade fair for plastics and rubber, that lifted RevPAR 201% on a 127.8% ADR increase. The market accounted for 375 basis points of the country’s ADR increase and 500 basis points of its RevPAR gain. Other German markets seeing double-digit ADR and RevPAR growth included Baltic Coast, Berlin, Cologne, Germany West, and Ruhr.

Spain’s same-store RevPAR and ADR growth were widespread with nine of its 10 markets seeing double-digit RevPAR gains, eight of which had ADR growth of more than 10%. Italy’s strong performance was also widespread with 11 of its 16 hotel markets showing strong RevPAR growth above 10%.

Canada and Mexico hotels continued to see solid growth with same-store RevPAR up 6.8% and 4.8%, respectively.

As noted last week, the solid ADR gains U.S. hoteliers have seen over the past three weeks have been driven by one-off events and/or markets. This week, Dreamforce 2025 accounted for slightly more than 100 basis points of U.S. hotels’ ADR gain. Occupancy continued its downward trend at a pace like what we have seen since May. Thus, we expect October RevPAR to be flat to down with a higher likelihood of a decrease. Why? Assuming that occupancy for the remaining 13 days of the month falls 1.7 percentage points per day – the average of the past 18 days – ADR would have to increase 2.1% each day for the industry to record a flat October. Over the past 30 days, ADR growth has only averaged a 1% increase. The probability of higher growth, therefore, seems unlikely.

Outside of the U.S., ADR is growing stronger and more widespread, which makes it much more probable that RevPAR will again be positive like it has been for most of the year.
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.

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