After a post-Thanksgiving lull, demand for U.S. hotel rooms returned much stronger than anticipated — particularly in New York City, where 90.2% of rooms were occupied and average daily rate was $1,000 or more at 24 hotels.
The NYC occupancy was the highest it’s been since late 2019, as its hotels sold more rooms than in any other week since the end of 2019, according to data from STR, CoStar’s hospitality analytics firm.
Total U.S. hotel industry occupancy was 59.6% for the week ending Dec. 10, up from 55.4% the week before. The industry sold 23.1 million rooms during the week, which was a record high for this particular week and for the two-week period following Thanksgiving.
U.S. hotel industry ADR was $145, driving revenue per available room of $86 — both new records for week 50. Week over week, ADR was up 2% and RevPAR up 9.8%. Compared to the same week in 2021, ADR was up 12.4% while RevPAR increased 16.7%. The increase over 2019 was 15.3% for ADR and 13.9% for RevPAR.
Adjusted for inflation, real ADR was 26 cents lower than the 2019 level, and real RevPAR was down by a little more than $1.
The room demand record was driven mostly by weekday (Monday to Wednesday) performance, accounting for 44.3% of the total rooms sold — the highest percentage of the year. The industry also sold 500,000 more rooms on Sunday and Thursday — which are known as shoulder days — while weekend room nights were down 171,000 week over week.
Total weekly room demand increased by 1.6 million room nights week over week, with weekdays accounting for 1.3 million of them.
Top 25 markets accounted for 52% of the total week-over-week room demand gain, as well as 48% of the weekday demand and 52% of the increase in shoulder-day demand.
The industry also sold more hotel rooms to groups than ever before in week 50 and in the two weeks post-Thanksgiving.
Weekday group demand was also the most for the week over the past 23 years and accounted for nearly half of the group rooms sold.
Market Performance
Fifty-one markets reported their highest demand for week 50 since the start of weekly reporting in 2000. The group included Austin, Dallas, Nashville, Orlando and Phoenix.
New York City led the nation in occupancy with Fort Myers, Florida, a distant second at 82.5%. Occupancy exceeded 70% in Miami, Orlando, Phoenix and Tampa. More than half of the 166 STR-defined U.S. markets posted occupancy higher than in the same week of 2019. Overall, U.S. occupancy was 0.7 percentage points lower than in the comparable week of 2019.
While real ADR was flat to 2019 on a national basis, 47% of markets recorded real ADR that was higher than in the comparable week of 2019 including Maui, Miami, Nashville, New York City, Phoenix, San Diego and Tampa. Maui had the nation’s highest nominal ADR for the week at $457, which was also the highest when adjusted for inflation. Closely behind Maui was New York City at $435 ADR.
At the property level 48 hotels achieved ADR of $1,000 or more, half of which were in NYC. Twenty-four New York City hotels had nominal weekday ADR of more than $1,000, compared to 15 in 2019. Overall, the city accounted for 10.4% of the nation’s room revenues — the highest percentage of the past 109 weeks.
By submarket, Midtown East, Village/Soho/Tribeca and Midtown West/Times Square all achieved weekday ADR of $500 or more. Real, inflation adjusted weekday ADR exceeded 2019 levels for the week in all but three NYC submarkets. The notable exception was the Financial District, where nominal weekday ADR was $455 but down 3% from the comparable week in 2019 when accounting for inflation.
New York City also had the highest nominal RevPAR of the week at $392, which was 20% higher than in 2019 and 4% greater when accounting for inflation.
Weekly RevPAR exceeded the 2019 level in 90% of all U.S. hotel markets, but only in 49% of markets when adjusted for inflation.
New York City also led the nation in weekday occupancy at 92.6%, with Tampa and Phoenix above 80% along with Fort Myers and Palm Beach, Florida.
Weekday occupancy in San Francisco was 75%, marking the 17th time this year at that level. In 2019, San Francisco was at or above that level 45 times. While the week’s occupancy was another sign of San Francisco’s recovery with business travelers, weekday occupancy was above 95% in 2019.
Orlando benefited the most from weekday group demand, which made up 45% of total demand Monday through Wednesday. In Phoenix, New Orleans and San Diego, nearly a third of the total weekday demand came from groups.
Over the past 28 days, 53% of U.S markets reported real RevPAR above 2019 levels, and another 44% had real RevPAR between 80% and 100% of 2019.
Fort Myers and Sarasota continued to report the highest real RevPAR above 2019 as recovery continues post-Hurricane Ian. Real RevPAR in both markets was 50% higher than what it was in 2019.
Real RevPAR in San Francisco was below 50% of the 2019 level, marking the first time in 36 weeks that a market has fallen back into the “Depression” category, as defined by STR.
Five of the top 25 markets — including Miami, Phoenix and San Diego — are likely to finish the year with real RevPAR above 2019.
Isaac Collazo is VP 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.