U.S. hotel revenue per available room fell 6.6% in the week of Sept. 21-27. The decrease was mostly due to declining occupancy — which was down 2.8 percentage points — but was worsened by a 2.5% retreat in average daily rate.
U.S. hotel occupancy has declined for the past 14 consecutive weeks, the longest such streak since the end of the pandemic. Further, since April, weekly hotel occupancy has only increased twice.
The softness in this week’s hotel performance results was anticipated due to the movement of the Rosh Hashanah observance that began on Monday, Sept. 22, and ended Wednesday, Sept. 24. Not surprisingly, the largest RevPAR declines were seen on Monday (-12.4%) and Tuesday (-11.4%), with a lesser decrease on Wednesday (-8.4%). The declines, however, continued through the weekend, when RevPAR fell 1.4%.
The only good news is that ADR comps turned positive over the weekend, albeit not by much (+0.4%). Since May, U.S. hotel ADR has increased in 14 of the past 22 weekends at an average of 1.2%. This most recent weekend’s gain was second lowest since May.
Rosh Hashanah demand fourth highest
Since 2000, Rosh Hashanah has started on a Monday just four times: 2005, 2008, 2021, and 2025. This year’s hotel RevPAR results over the three days of the observance were like what we saw in 2008 during the Great Recession (-14.6% then and -10.7% now). But, unlike 2008, the U.S. is not in an economic recession, so this is different.
A look at all the Rosh Hashanah results regardless of starting day of the week shows this year’s three-day result resembled 2019, when the holiday began on a Sunday and U.S. hotel RevPAR fell 10.1%. This year’s absolute demand (11.1 million hotel room nights sold) was the fourth highest during the three days behind 2023 (11.2 million), 2024 (11.5 million) and 2017 (11.7 million). In 2023, Rosh Hashanah began on a Friday, while in 2017 and 2024, it started on Wednesday.
Top 25 markets fell the most, particularly in group hotels
Most of Rosh Hashanah’s impact was in the top 25 U.S. hotel markets where weekly RevPAR fell 11.3% versus 2.3% elsewhere. That disparity is because of the slowing in business and group travel during the observance. RevPAR for luxury and upper-upscale class hotels in the top 25 markets dropped by 11.9% due to a 26% decrease in group demand. Total U.S. group demand was down 19.4% for the full week and by more than 25% during the three-day observance period.
Eleven of the top 25 markets saw weekly hotel RevPAR decrease by more than 13%. The outliers were St. Louis (+11.6%) and New York City (+6.6%), the latter of which benefited from the U.N. General Assembly that drove a 23% ADR gain Thursday through Saturday. Hotel occupancy was also up on those days, and while the full week was down, New York City held on to the nation’s highest occupancy (91.8%) for a fifth consecutive week.
Long Island saw the nation’s largest RevPAR gain (+76.4%) on a 68.1% ADR increase due to the 45th Ryder Cup. Georgia North was a distant second as RevPAR advanced by 40.8% on ADR (+43.8%) because of the Alabama-Georgia football game.
RevPAR was down for all hotel types ranging from a 7.7% decrease in luxury to a 9% decline in upper upscale. This was the first week among the past 22 that economy hotels did not have the largest RevPAR decrease.
A moderately negative September for US hotels
As anticipated, the shift in the Rosh Hashanah observance to the beginning of the week tanked year-over-year hotel performance comps. However, the weekend didn’t recover and showed the same RevPAR malaise seen throughout the month.
Because of that, we now expect September U.S. hotel RevPAR to be down by more than 2%. On a day-matched basis, month-to-date RevPAR is down 2.8%. Even if the last three days of the month see hotel demand rise by 1% and ADR by 2.7%, the month will still register a RevPAR decrease of more than 2%.
October is expected to be better given that it is relatively free of calendar shifts and conducive for groups, meetings and business travel, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Global RevPAR still climbing but a bit slower
Global same-store RevPAR growth, excluding hotels in the U.S., slowed to 2.6% from a 5.6% increase a week prior. Occupancy comps were negative from Sunday through Thursday with ADR generally holding steading and rising by 3.6% for the entire week.
Moderate hotel RevPAR declines were registered in China, France, Germany and India via falling occupancy. Italy, Spain, and Japan saw strong weekly same-store RevPAR gains with Mexico and the Middle East and Africa not far behind.
Canadian hotels also had an off week as same-store RevPAR declined 0.9%. On a total basis (all hotels), Canadian RevPAR was up slightly (+1.2%), but still weaker than what had been seen most of the year. The weakness was most evident in the larger markets – Alberta, Montreal, Toronto, Quebec, and Vancouver – where RevPAR was flat to down for the week.
China same-store hotel RevPAR dropped 5% on falling occupancy. Nearly all markets saw a drop in RevPAR except Changsha, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and several others. The four markets listed saw RevPAR increase by 5% or more. The weekly decline is likely due to the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival and Golden Week on Oct. 1-8.
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.