This summer is off to a slow start, travel-wise, and hotel performance numbers reflect that.
While the number of hotel rooms sold in the U.S. in May was the highest overall since 2019, hosts of the "Tell Me More: A Hospitality Data Podcast" agreed that finding real performance positives is getting difficult.
On the latest episode, STR Senior Director of Analytics Isaac Collazo said "the only positive" in May was the number of rooms sold.
"We sold 3.7 million rooms each night [in May] versus 3.6 million a month ago, so that's a positive," he said.
Occupancy dropped, and along with it average daily rate. Revenue per available room in May was up 0.1% over May 2024, but only because the month had one extra Saturday in it.
Jan Freitag, CoStar's national director of hospitality analytics, admitted he's a little more worried now about how this summer will fare.
"We had hoped that this summer ... would turn positive, because the American leisure traveler sits on their hands and then — with a very short booking window — makes the booking," he said. "I hope that's true, but where we look in May, I'm a little more worried now."
Collazo predicted this would be "a very bumpy summer" for U.S. hotels. This is in part because heightened political worries and current pullbacks in consumer confidence also affect business transient travel, group travel and international inbound travel, which already is suffering.
But Collazo reminded listeners that "as you look at industry results, it's going to be even more important to really dissect it and break it apart. ... You're going to have to really look at it by regions of the country and be aware of the pockets" where performance might be doing well.
Hotels in Orlando and Chicago, for example, experienced positive May performance, Collazo said. On the other hand, hotel markets such as Las Vegas and Texas were responsible for nationwide performance drags. Las Vegas in particular is feeling the loss of international inbound travelers, along with dips in business-transient and leisure travelers.
Also in this episode
- Freitag shares highlights of hotel transactions from the second quarter of 2025, highlighting the JW Marriott Desert Ridge sale to Ryman Hospitality for $865 million.
- The hosts talk summer travel trends and booking windows based on a recent Deloitte survey.
- The ever-present effects weather events have on hotel performance.