The week of Oct. 26 to Nov. 1 wasn’t as bad for U.S. hotels as the previous week, but revenue per available room was down again. Falling weekend hotel occupancy due to Halloween was the main culprit behind a 2.3% drop in RevPAR.
Weekly average daily rate rose 0.4%, which was well below the rate of inflation. Occupancy fell 1.6 percentage points and was down for a 19th consecutive week. The top 25 U.S. hotel markets saw less of a RevPAR decline this week (-0.7%) versus all other markets (-3.6%) as business transient and group demand was stronger with Halloween at the end of the week. The non-top 25 markets also had to contend with difficult comps from last year’s Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton displacement demand.
RevPAR from Sunday, Oct. 26, through Thursday, Oct. 30, increased 4% with a 3.7% gain in the top 25 markets and 4.4% growth in all other markets. Those increases were driven by ADR growth above the inflation rate.
Most of the weekday RevPAR increase came on Wednesday, Oct. 29 (+17.9%), which had easier comps from last year. Excluding Wednesday, weekday RevPAR was up 0.8% with the top 25 markets flat (+0.2%) and the remainder of the country up 1.6%.
Those gains don’t tell the whole story, however, given the drag from last year’s hurricane markets and Las Vegas. Excluding both, U.S. hotel weekday RevPAR was up by more than 6% throughout the country with nearly the same growth in the two market categories. Even if you exclude Wednesday, weekday RevPAR was up 3.1% nationwide with the top 25 seeing a slightly lower increase.
Over the weekend on Friday, Oct. 31, and Saturday, Nov. 1, nationwide hotel RevPAR fell 13.9% due to Halloween with most of the decrease coming on Friday (-18.2%). Weekend RevPAR fell 29.6% in the 2024 hurricane markets and 10.2% in Las Vegas. For the entire week, 2024 hurricane markets were down 22.7%, while Las Vegas fell 11.6%.
Halloween per capita demand weakened
Since 2000, Halloween has fallen on a Friday four times including this year and three times on a Saturday. U.S. hotel occupancy this Halloween weekend was the third highest of the seven occurrences and down 1.8 percentage points from the record seen in 2015. However, 7.1 million hotel rooms were sold this Halloween weekend, which is more than in any of the past occurrences of Halloween falling on a Friday or Saturday. Given the gains in population, we calculated the per capita ratio against the total working population and found that this year’s Halloween weekend per capita demand was down even though absolute demand was at a record high. In 2014, for every 1,000 employed individuals, the U.S. hotel industry sold 46.7 weekend rooms, the most per capita of the seven weekend occurrences. This year the metric was at 44.7 rooms. A similar weakness was seen Sunday through Thursday.
Markets movements
While it was a bifurcated week, there were still markets that did well including Boston, Dallas, Chicago, Columbus, San Francisco, and 12 others that saw double-digit RevPAR gains for the entire week. New York City had the nation’s highest weekly occupancy (89.3%) as it has for the past 10 weeks.
Washington, D.C. continued to be affected by the changes in government employment and the shutdown. Weekly RevPAR was down 6.2% on falling occupancy. The submarkets of Alexandria and I-95 Fredericksburg each saw hotel RevPAR drop by more than 10%, also on declining occupancy.
Within the top 25 U.S. hotel markets, New Orleans saw the largest RevPAR decline (-38.3%) due to difficult comps from the end of the Taylor Swift Eras Tour a year ago and a large midweek conference. Last year, RevPAR for this week was up 52.2% on double-digit occupancy and ADR growth.
Group demand drove weekday RevPAR
With the shift of Halloween, group demand among luxury and upper-upscale hotels showed a solid increase of 4% with the strongest increase on Wednesday. From Sunday through Thursday, luxury and upper-upscale hotels reported RevPAR growth of more than 9% each on strong occupancy gains. The only other class of hotels to see RevPAR gains during that time was Upscale (+3.2%). Economy saw the largest decrease (-8.3%). Over the weekend, all classes saw RevPAR fall, ranging from an 11.2% decline in luxury to a 15.4% drop in upper midscale.
Global RevPAR surges again
Outside the U.S., global hotel RevPAR soared 11.7% on a same-store basis as ADR rose 7.7% and occupancy ticked up 3.7 percentage points. The widespread growth was led by India, where RevPAR rose 88% on a 67-percentage-point increase in occupancy due to easy Diwali 2024 comps. Germany saw RevPAR rise 33.3% on a 25.4% ADR gain. In total, nine of the 12 key countries saw double-digit RevPAR gains.
Germany’s meteoric growth was due to the pharmaceutical industry’s CPHI conference in Frankfurt. Weekly market ADR rose 153% resulting in a 224% RevPAR increase. Without Frankfurt, German RevPAR was still strong at 12.9% versus its 33.3% gain with Frankfurt. Other German markets seeing double-digit increases included Cologne, Munich and Düsseldorf. Berlin and Hamburg both saw RevPAR retreat in the week.
France saw last week’s double-digit RevPAR increase stretch into the new week, which was again led by Paris, where hotel ADR growth pushed RevPAR up 16.8%. Other markets seeing strong growth included Occitanie, Ile-de-France, Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes and Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
In Canada, hotel RevPAR advanced by 11.7% on a 37.8% gain in Toronto, which hosted games 6 and 7 of the World Series. Other Canadian hotel markets posting double-digit RevPAR increases included Calgary, Edmonton and Quebec. Montreal was flat.
Nine of the 13 Caribbean countries saw RevPAR decrease in the week with Hurricane Melissa’s impact in the prior week still being felt across the area. Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, along with Turks and Caicos all saw RevPAR fall by more than 30%.
No change expected
This week’s performance results continued to illustrate the impact of calendar shifts and the ongoing weakness in the U.S. hotel industry. Outside the U.S., most regions/countries are seeing growth led by traditional drivers including business travel and conferences.
We estimate that U.S. October RevPAR will be down more than 1% once monthly data is processed. If the estimate holds, it will be the seventh consecutive monthly decrease. Room demand would have also fallen seven times with the measure down 1.8 million room nights in October, the largest monthly decrease of the year so far. We expect that November and December will also be challenging months.
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.