U.S. hotel revenue per available room kicked off March with a 4.8% increase to $105, the largest weekly total since October 2025. Also during the week of March 1-7, U.S. hotel average date rate increased by 3.6% and occupancy reached 63%, up 0.7 percentage points.
Las Vegas was the largest contributor to growth this week as it hosted North America’s largest construction trade show, CONEXPO-CON/AGG. This triennial event drew in over 140,000 attendees from around the world, resulting in a 90.5% RevPAR gain in the market via a 60% ADR boost on 85% hotel occupancy. Las Vegas accounted for 327 basis points of the U.S. RevPAR growth this week, due to the market’s highest ADR since it hosted the Super Bowl in 2024. Excluding Las Vegas, RevPAR in the rest of the country was up 1.6%, which is nearly the same as in the prior week.
CONEXPO-CON/AGG drove RevPAR increases across all hotel classes in Las Vegas, but luxury and upper-upscale hotels saw the largest lifts in RevPAR, ADR and occupancy. The 57.7% jump in group demand in Las Vegas accounted for most of the 2.7% group demand increase in the U.S. overall. If you remove Las Vegas, group demand in the U.S. was up 0.7% on the week.
U.S. group demand among luxury and upper-upscale hotels, excluding Las Vegas, has increased for the past five weeks. Despite group demand decline for the first five weeks of 2026, the last five weeks have brought year-to-date group demand to 130,000 more rooms than this time last year. Group demand in the top 25 U.S. hotel markets without Las Vegas has seen growth of more than 2.3% over the fortnight. These markets saw a k-shaped split between classes as the top tier grew 3.4% in RevPAR this week while the bottom tier declined 4.3%. Outside of the top 25 markets, luxury and upper upscale saw a smaller growth of 2.8% in RevPAR and midscale and economy hotels had a smaller decline of just 0.2%.
Excluding Las Vegas and the 13 hurricane markets, the remaining markets — aka “core” — were up 2% in RevPAR, its fifth consecutive week of growth. Room demand has also increased for five straight weeks and has been trending upward since the fourth quarter. Core demand is up 2.9 million room nights since the beginning of the year. At this time last year, it had fallen 1.7 million room nights.
Weekend RevPAR on Friday and Saturday in core markets grew by 2.8% and 2.6% in demand. Weekend growth in the top 25 markets was up 4% as only four of these markets saw decline. Weekday RevPAR was up to a lesser extent, increasing 1.6% in RevPAR and 0.9% in total demand. These totals were driven down by slow weeks for markets such as New York City, Chicago and New Orleans. Markets outside the top 25 were up 2% in demand for the weekdays, largely driven by AI data center markets.
San Diego saw the largest hotel demand lift outside of Las Vegas this week, increasing by over 48,000 rooms sold with RevPAR up 20.7%. Group demand for luxury and upper-upscale hotels in San Diego accounted for more than half of this lift as the city hosted multiple medical and life science conferences. Houston was another top market as hotel RevPAR increased by double-digits for a second consecutive week. Houston benefitted from the alignment of the Livestock Show and Rodeo with the World Baseball Classic tournament. San Francisco continued its hot streak in 2026 with RevPAR up 18.9% this week.
AI data centers continue to drive growth in smaller markets. Texas North, Louisiana North, Memphis and Nevada Area have all averaged hotel RevPAR increases of over 20% and double-digit demand growth over the past four weeks.
New York City hotel performance continued to feel the impact of the recent winter storms. RevPAR (-2.5%) in the city fell for the second consecutive week, after seven weeks of growth. Chicago (-3.9% RevPAR) was also affected by weather, especially early in the week. New Orleans saw the largest RevPAR decline (-17.2%) among the top 25 markets, due to difficult comparisons to Mardi Gras 2025. This week marks the eighth time of the last 10 weeks that New Orleans’ RevPAR declined.
Global RevPAR unchanged from a week ago
Global RevPAR excluding the U.S. on a same-store and constant USD basis increased 2.6%, which was slightly better than a week ago (+2.2%) despite decreases in China, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), France, India, Mexico, and the U.K. Excluding China and the GCC, RevPAR was up 4.8%.
Eight days into the war in Iran, GCC performance was mixed. Same-store RevPAR in the United Arab Emirates dropped 9.8% on an 8.3% occupancy decrease. RevPAR for the total market was down 7.9%. Of the three markets, only Dubai saw RevPAR decline this week (-19.6%) as UAE Provencial and Abu Dhabi were up by more than 23% via ADR.
Elsewhere in the GCC, Saudi Arabia also saw RevPAR fall (-0.1%) on hotel occupancy whereas the remaining GCC countries were up as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar saw the measure increase by double-digit amounts.
Mexico hotel RevPAR fell 22.5% on a same-store basis with 11 of the 14 markets reporting declines led by Pacific Central, which includes Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara, the cities most affected by the recent cartel violence. All the key resort areas also saw declines with RevPAR in Mexican Caribbean and Cancun down by 22%.
Isaac Collazo is senior director of analytics at STR. Cole Martin is an analytics and insights specialist at STR.