In the week of Aug. 2-8, U.S. hotel revenue per available room (RevPAR) advanced 7.2%, its 18th consecutive weekly gain.
For the week, average daily rate (ADR) rose 4.1%, fueling the RevPAR gain. The RevPAR growth of the last two weeks has been higher than the increases seen in the last three weeks of the World Cup and higher than what was seen in the two weeks prior to the World Cup.
U.S. hotel occupancy is beginning its seasonal downturn with this week’s level (70%) below the 2026 peak (72.4%) achieved in each of the two weeks ending July 25. This year’s occupancy peak was the highest since the week ending July 20, 2024, when the measure achieved 73.6%. While U.S. hotel occupancy is trending down, demand over the last three weeks has been individually the highest of the past six years.
The top 25 U.S. hotel markets saw RevPAR increase 8.5% while all other markets were up 6.4% during the first full week of August. Market leaders in the top 25 included Philadelphia, where RevPAR jumped 27.4% on a sizable gain in group demand, followed by Chicago (+23.8%). Other top 25 markets that saw double-digit RevPAR gains included Boston, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, New York, San Diego and Washington, D.C. Most of them also had solid group gains during the week. Overall, 21 of the top 25 markets saw RevPAR increase with Miami, Nashville, New Orleans and Seattle reporting decreases.
Outside of the top 25 markets, 51 U.S. hotel markets had RevPAR gains of 10% or more, the most of the past five weeks. Leaders included Texas North, Texas Panhandle, and Macon/Warner Robins, Georgia, where the measure grew by more than 30%.
World Cup markets remained strong with RevPAR up 9.4% over the past two weeks but down from the 15.5% growth seen during the games. RevPAR has strengthened in non-World Cup markets. During the games, RevPAR in these markets was up 6.1%. In the fortnight, RevPAR grew 6.7%, which was also well ahead of the pre-World Cup growth (5.5%). ADR continued to be the primary driver of growth for both the World Cup and non-World Cup markets.
Group demand among luxury and upper-upscale hotels grew 5.7% in the week of Aug. 2-8 after a 12% gain in the previous week. The increase was widespread across the nation, but the primary driver of total demand continued to be transient, which accounted for 60% of the growth. Group ADR increased 3.7% whereas transient ADR was up 6.8%.
Room demand was up across all classes of hotels, with the strong demand gains in the middle ones — upscale and upper-midscale — where it was up by more than 4% each. Nearly 60% of this week’s total demand increase came from those two segments. However, and like most of the of the past two years, much of the RevPAR increase (52%) came from luxury and upper-upscale hotels, where the measure was up 10.9% and 7.9%, respectively. This week and for the second consecutive week, every hotel class saw gains in occupancy, ADR and RevPAR.
By type of day, the weekend saw the largest hotel RevPAR gain, up 7.7% versus 7% for weekdays. The stronger performance came from better growth in both occupancy and ADR. This was the first time in seven weeks that all three key weekend growth measures were higher than that of weekdays. Weekdays still have a slight lead in full-year RevPAR growth — 5.3% vs 4.5% — with both seeing nearly the same ADR gains (+3.7%).
In the 79 days of summer so far, U.S. hotel RevPAR is up 7.4%, the strongest since 2022, driven by ADR (+5.7%). Based on history and the waning days of summer, we expect RevPAR in the next two weeks to be positive but lower than the previous fortnight. Both demand and ADR growth are expected to soften.
Global performance
Global hotel RevPAR increased 2.2% on a comparable, constant USD basis excluding the U.S. This is the third consecutive week where global RevPAR has topped 2%. The gains continue to be driven by ADR as hotel occupancy has fallen for 10 straight weeks and has only risen three times since March.
India and Canada led the world as each saw strong double-digit gains. Over the past two weeks, Canada has rebounded to pre-World Cup RevPAR gains due to stronger hotel performance in Vancouver. During the World Cup, Vancouver saw RevPAR stall, up 0.2% during the game period versus 7.2% in the two weeks prior to the matches. Over the past two weeks, RevPAR there was up 18.2%. Toronto is also performing better than what it saw during the games.
China continued to see its RevPAR retreat on declining hotel occupancy and flat ADR. However, the last two weeks saw less of a decrease (-1.1%) than in the past six weeks (-4.8%).
Mexico also continued to see RevPAR fall, down 13.4% this week on a 10.6% ADR decline, which was centered in the Mexican Caribbean and Cancun. Mexico City and Yucatan/Campeche saw very strong RevPAR gains on solid ADR growth and a robust increase in occupancy.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries saw RevPAR decrease 16.8%, its fourth consecutive double-digit fall. Over the past 23 weeks, since the start of the war with Iran, RevPAR has seen double-digit declines 21 times.
Cole Martin is Analytics and Insights Specialist at STR and Isaac Collazo is senior director of analytics at STR.