In the two weeks ending Nov. 29, U.S. hotel revenue per available room decreased 0.3% as occupancy fell 0.7 percentage points and average daily rate rose 0.9%.
Since the end of April, U.S. hotel room demand has fallen in 21 of 31 weeks while occupancy has dipped in 28 weeks. Slowly increasing hotel supply has negated some of the demand growth during this period, but in the two most recent weeks, supply gains abated a bit.
In the week before the Thanksgiving holiday – Nov. 16-22 – RevPAR was flat. During the week of Thanksgiving from Nov. 23-29, RevPAR retreated 0.7%.
Hurricane markets – the 13 U.S. hotel markets affected by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton in September 2024 – continued to factor into year-over-year comparisons. Excluding those 13, RevPAR in the remaining hotel markets across the U.S. was up 0.9% in the fortnight and up in both individual weeks; in the week before Thanksgiving, RevPAR rose 1.3%. More importantly, the occupancy declines that have plagued the hotel industry all year slowed considerably when excluding the hurricane markets as occupancy was basically flat over the past two weeks (-0.1 percentage points). ADR, however, remained below the inflation rate, rising by 1.1% in the fortnight.
Among the top 25 U.S. hotel markets, Dallas, Philadelphia, San Francisco and St. Louis all saw strong, double-digit RevPAR growth over the two-week period; San Francisco (+51.3%) and St. Louis (+35.5%) hotels posted exaggerated RevPAR increases. Both saw very strong gains in the week before Thanksgiving, but the growth also extended into Thanksgiving week.
On the other end of the spectrum, Tampa hotels saw RevPAR decline 28.2% over the fortnight due to last year’s hurricane-led growth. Other markets with falling RevPAR included Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston and Seattle, where two-week RevPAR dropped by more than 6%. In total, 13 of the top 25 U.S. hotel markets saw RevPAR retreat during the fortnight.
Group demand driving several key markets
Group demand for luxury and upper-upscale hotels for the two weeks ending Nov. 29 was down 1% even with strong growth in five top 25 markets: St. Louis (+88.2%), San Francisco (+77.7%), Oahu (+35%), Detroit (+27.9%), and Washington, D.C. (+12%). The growth was mostly in the week of Nov. 16-22, but strong group demand growth also lingered into Thanksgiving week in several of these markets.
Both St. Louis and San Francisco hotels have benefited greatly this fall from increased conference activity. In the week of Nov. 16-22, San Francisco hosted Microsoft Ignite 2025, while St. Louis welcomed The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC25). St. Louis has seen strong, group-led performance this year as the market’s convention center, America’s Center, reopened early last year after a renovation. Since the beginning of the second quarter, St. Louis’ RevPAR has advanced 12.7% on a 5.2-percentage-point occupancy increase and ADR growth of 3.2%. San Francisco has seen a similar RevPAR increase (+13.3%) led by ADR (+7.4%).
Among the various hotel types, the bifurcation contrast was really apparent as hotels in the luxury chain scale rose 7.3% over the two weeks, whereas economy hotels fell 8%. During Thanksgiving week, both luxury and upper-upscale chains saw solid occupancy growth with moderate ADR gains. Room demand for both chain scales was up more than 5%, while all other chain scales were down.
Thanksgiving week wasn’t a bust
Looking back at the past 26 Thanksgiving weeks since STR began recording daily results, Thanksgiving Week 2025 showed the third-highest demand, albeit down slightly (-0.2%) from a year ago. The demand decrease nearly mirrored the 0.4% decline in TSA weekly screenings.
In total, 19.8 million U.S. hotel rooms were sold in the week as compared to the record 20.6 million sold in Thanksgiving Week 2021. While the week only ranked as the third best, Wednesday and Thursday (Thanksgiving Day) individually ranked second in demand behind 2021. Thanksgiving Day hotel occupancy reached 54.9%, the eighth best in history. Thanksgiving weekend occupancy was 57.9%, down a full point from a year ago and ranking 16 of the past 26 Thanksgiving weekends.
A weak finish for the US
Our general conclusion is that U.S. hotel performance over the final two weeks of November was decent with hurricane markets accounting for most of the percentage decrease year over year. The low ADR gains, which remain well below inflation, are still a concern as the pressure on hotel operating margins will continue.
Looking ahead, U.S. hotel RevPAR for the full month of November will come in weaker than what the current month-to-date results show (-1.3%) due to the loss of a Friday and the addition of a Sunday as compared to last year. We estimate that the month will fall by roughly 2%. December also looks to be on the weak side with RevPAR flat to down due to the movement of holidays. Our analysis shows that a Wednesday Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve have historically resulted in the lowest occupancy for those two days and the days in between.
RevPAR surges outside the US, particularly in the Middle East
Global hotel performance, excluding the U.S. and on a same-store basis, remained robust with RevPAR increasing 8.7% over the past two weeks on a 6.9% ADR gain. ADR has increased by more than 5% in seven of the past 10 weeks. Occupancy was also solid, rising 1.2 percentage points in the fortnight to 73.9%.
The Gulf Cooperative Council countries led the way as hotel RevPAR surged 30.4% with the region in the midst of events season. Australia, the Caribbean, France, India, Japan, and Spain all saw RevPAR advance more than 10% with Italy and Germany not far behind.
China’s RevPAR grew by 1.2% in the final two weeks of November and has increased for the past six weeks. Like in the U.S., RevPAR growth over the past two weeks bifurcated with Chinese luxury-class hotels seeing a 9% increase driven by nearly equal gains in occupancy and ADR, whereas midscale- and economy-class hotels saw RevPAR decrease more than 3% on falling occupancy. Besides luxury, upper-upscale was the only other class to see growth in the period. On a market basis, Sanya and Hong Kong saw the highest RevPAR growth rates (15%+). Among the five largest markets, only Shanghai posted a RevPAR increase.
Canada and Mexico saw same-store hotel RevPAR fall in the week of Nov. 16-22 followed by growth in the following week. In Canada, the decrease two weeks ago was focused in the two largest markets, Toronto and Vancouver, as RevPAR fell 32% in Toronto on a 30% ADR decline due to difficult comps to last year’s final three Taylor Swift shows. Vancouver’s RevPAR was down 16% on decreases in both occupancy and ADR. In the week of Nov. 23-29, Canadian RevPAR rebounded (+4.9%), but Toronto remained in arrears (-3.4%) with Vancouver up 4.7%.
Mexico saw a similar pattern down 2.3% two weeks ago and up 2.1% during Thanksgiving week. Most of the resort markets were down the week before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday followed by strong growth during the holiday week.
At this point, there seems to be no stopping the growth outside the U.S., and we expect the year to end on a solid footing.
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.